Brother with a TBI - Looking For Support
My brother (34M) was in a motor accident, and has been in the ICU for little over 3 weeks now. The accident caused shearing brain injury to the center of the brain, and was without oxygen for at least 12 minutes. He has been off sedation now for 1 week, but still remains in a coma. He retracts to pain, and opens his eyes slightly without focusing, but does not respond to verbal commands. Soon they want to move him to LTACH since he's stabilized enough to leave the ICU. The neurosurgeons we've spoken to have all had the same prognosis, that he will likely never wake up again.
Our family still want to try to support him and give him a chance to recover on his own, but we're struggling with navigating the system and finding out how to get resources to support him. About him:
- 34M living in NorCal
- Not a US citizen, but green card holder and working in the US 5+ years
- Has a company medical plan until near the end of next year
- Has no existing will or power of attorney setup, but we're applying for conservatorship
What we're trying to figure out:
- Applying for state & federal disability insurance on his behalf
- Applying for Medi-Cal and Medi-Care for when he gets moved to sub-acute / SNF care
- His medical insurance will only cover 100 days, afterwards we need to find another solution
If anyone here has navigated these systems before I'd appreciate any help we can get since it seems like most of them are built with the assumption you're applying for yourself. Or found other resources / considerations we haven't thought of yet.