I highly recommend Cindy as a care management consultant for anyone needing help managing the health care or concerns of an elderly loved one.
My mother and I first heard about Cindy when we got news that my father's Medicare benefits were prematurely being cut off by the Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF) he was at after he had survived a massive stroke and the SNF didn't think he was making enough "progress" in therapy. He still had over a month left of his 100 days of coverage, which he badly needed to use - the injury to his brain being so severe - so it just didn't make sense. The cost to pay privately for him to stay at the SNF was exorbitant $355/day - and he was no where near being able to be cared for at home. We were stunned, angry, perplexed, thought the SNF would help us through the process of managing my father's recovery, had no idea what our legal rights were, nor what we should do. I called around for an attorney, and one of the paralegals I spoke with suggested I call Cindy.
I had no idea there was such a thing as a care management consultant, nor why we would need one, but I figured I would give Cindy a call to see what she would say. That is when everything turned around for us. Within a few minutes of listening to her, I knew we needed to meet her in person.
Talking to Cindy was like a breath of fresh air - friendly, knowledgeable, and informative - she gave us what the SNF told us was not possible: hope for the future. Having a loved one go through a massive stroke with extensive brain injury is a devastating experience. There was so much to learn and figure out, and the SNF had only given us the most dire prognosis - that sending my father to a nursing home was our only viable option, something which we would never let happen. He had worked far too hard in his life and deserved to live his days at home. Cindy helped us navigate the rough waters of our health care system, dealing with Medicare and Skilled Nursing Facilities so we could get my father home. She explained the for-profit business model of SNFs, why they cut you off from your Medicare benefits, and how to fight back through the appeal process. She told us about how medicare is really supposed to work, and the legal case that was supposed to eliminate the myth of the "improvement standard" for continuance of benefits. For the first time, what we heard made sense. We took everything she told us to heart and acted on it.
For my father, she connected us with two excellent therapists to work with my father. Very little of what the SNF therapists did made sense, was never challenging, and some of it even seemed like it was meant to sabotage my father's progress - like adding a confusing, unrelated cognitive tasks at the end of a physical task. With our private therapists, my father began to make noticeable improvements.
Cindy told us how to best leverage our funds for the long run to aid my father's recovery without going bankrupt. And when my father had a seizure and was admitted back into the hospital, Cindy told us what needed to happen for his Medicare benefits to kick back in again. My mother and I made it our mission to make it happen, and with God's help, we were successful. That small tip alone saved us from having to pay privately for another 1 1/2 months at the SNF - saving us a good $20k of money.
Cindy was always responsive and positive - a friendly, helpful face in times of crisis. She came to our aid when a therapist decided to blow up one day and yell at my father. She attended all of our care meetings at the SNF (which we had previously dubbed scare meetings), giving us the comfort and support of knowing we had someone there who was on our side, and a witness to what was being said in the meetings (we had been told that we could not record our own care meetings, which was likely a lie), and countered their information from her own decades of experience in the health care industry.
Having Cindy on our team made all the difference in the world. My father is now home and we have figured out a way to take care of him so that it doesn't break their bank. She recommended an excellent Home Health Services, who she personally interviewed, and we continue to consult with her as we move forward into the future. None of this would have happened without her. I recommend anyone struggling to take care of an ailing elderly loved one, no matter what the circumstance, to give her a call. read more
