u/spursendin1

My father has had a dementia diagnosis for the past 6 years or so. A glioblastoma was found 3 years ago. My mother wanted to have the operation. It was resected, he had chemo/radiation, but now it has grown back.

I work 60 hours a week and have a family to take care of. My mom is capable of taking care of him, to an extent. But he has gone downhill fast recently.

We were looking into the hospice designation, thinking that it would bring with it an increased amount of covered care for my father, aiding my mother with his day-to-day. Only to find out now that most hospice services (they live in Baltimore, MD) only offer 1 RN visit for 1-2 hours and 1-2 home healthcare aid visits per week. She needs a lot more help than this, and now I’m worried.

We asked about inpatient and apparently it’s “rare,” according to the social worker. Saying “most people pay for that out-of-pocket, at a rate of $500-$700/day.”

I’m worried that if he starts seizing, or something bad happens related to his deteriorating condition, that as of now EMS and a hospital visit is covered by their Medicare. But apparently if he goes under hospice designation it won’t be?!

Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you all in advance.

I am going to try to give as much detail as I am comfortable with, as I don’t like to over-share, for fear it could come back to bite me.

I work at a large metropolitan hospital in the US. I have been practicing anesthesia for 15 years, and today I experienced something that I’ve never seen before. I’m hoping others have some experience with this and can give me some advice on how to proceed:

About 2 months ago, I did a general anesthetic on a patient for a non-emergent general surgery case. Nothing went wrong. Everything was pretty normal with the case, both for the anesthetic and the surgery. The patient was reportedly “pain free” in PACU no issues documented. VS all stable. They were discharged the next day without any issues.

I received word from my department that this patient was making “a fuss” to the hospital about my care. Namely, that some medications that I gave made them feel “weird” that night and into the next day. They apparently got their chart from the hospital and took issue with a couple things that I gave on their review. Medications like Vecuronium and Decadron were pointed to, accusing them for being the reason why they “felt like they couldn’t calm themselves” days after, and that they “couldn’t sleep for 3 days”, as a result of my anesthetic. Blaming me for random feelings they had after surgery basically. My hospital and the legal department apparently knew about this for some time, and I was just told today, after their legal team wrote some letter that they were going to send to the patient.

Basically their letter to the patient was stating the medications given are within reason for their surgery, and they are an evidenced-based standard. However, also stating that they understand how losing sleep is a “terrible thing” after surgery, and “we will do what we can to improve our care here with what you have brought to our attention.”

Apparently, the patient said that they have also contacted the DOH, JC, amongst various levels of my hospital about this “sub-par” treatment. That I should have explained the meds that I was to use with them.

I have stated that I don’t like the wording in the letter, first of all. The head of our dept basically said it’s legal who writes it and her hands are tied. I mean this is a form of harassment. Repeatedly magnifying minor complaints, targeting me. This makes me look as if I don’t know what I’m doing to the untrained eye. Like I am winging it, or something. I’m sure it’s to try to get a bill amount down, or taken care of completely. And, if it became a suit, I’m sure it wouldn’t get through summary judgement. But I haven’t had any experience with patients like this. Can anyone possibly offer some guidance on what to do? Especially if you’ve been in a similar situation.

Thank you all!

I recently purchased a glass chandelier in Murano, Italy. I am trying to coordinate hanging it in a condo with 10-foot high ceilings, so not anything special. Because it’s such a specialty item, the research I did is telling me to go with a company that handles this type of chandelier a lot, for assembly and install. The main issue is that there aren’t many companies/contractors that I can find who handle this type, and the one that I did isn’t licensed with the Division of Consumer Affairs. They told me they don’t need to register with them, when I asked, because they are a specialty lighting company, rather than general contractors.

Does this seem right? I don’t know enough to tell whether something is fishy or not when it comes to contractors and licensing.

Thank you for any help!