by Guest » Fri Sep 30, 2011 06:33 pm
My father in law fell in his apartment and died from bleeding out in the brain. His doctor filled out the death certificate and checked natural causes. I called him and he yelled at me and said that since my father in law had prostate cancer (it had spread to his bone and was terminal but my father in law was just beginning pain med treatment and was still well enough to go out to dinner with us) that he was not going to change the death certificate. I figured I needed an attorney since my hubby was executor of the estate (no assets) and my father in law only had some accidental death insurance policies. Several weeks later, the state medical examiners office called and asked about the nature of my father in law's death. I told him all of the above and the medical examiner stated that my father-in-law should have had an autopsy as state law required it because of his fall, and since the doctor indicated natural causes and my father in law was already cremated that the doctor had violated many rules and not only would the med examiner's office FORCE the doctor to change the death certificate, but the doctor would be disciplined. We live in MD. Knowing what happened with my father in law and I figured the doctor was trying to cover up something, I don't trust doctors who fill out death certificates.
Fast forward to this year. My mother in law was ill since December, 2010. Hospitalized, doctors could find nothing wrong with her. She lived in an assisted living facility that cost $7,500 per month - but she could only stay in her condo if she was ambulatory and the facility determined that she was well enough to not need 24-7 care. After being hospitalized, she was discharged to the nursing home at the assisted living facility. She deteriorated rapidly and my husband wanted her to return to her condo since the nurses were mean in the nursing home and my mother-in-law just slumped in a wheel chair all day. So the assisted living facility said my mother in law could only return to her condo if we hired 24-7 care to stay with her in her condo. So we did. She seemed to get better. The staff there are nurses, a doctor etc. Then she developed a pressure sore on her tailbone because we found out that she was not staying in bed at night, she was sitting in a chair since it hurt her too much to lie down. She had something wrong that had not been diagnosed. She was scheduled to return to the hospital for treatment of the pressure sore and further tests but she fell out of the chair and was found on the floor. We were told by the hospital that she had suffered a stroke. She had tests but they didn't find anything except for an enlarged gallbladder (& the stroke). Then she had another stroke, or the 1st stroke caused her other arm to become dis-functional. Then she died. She died within 1 week of going to the hospital. Cause of death written on the death certificate? Aspiration pneumonia which caused sepsis which caused cardiopulmonary arrest. We were never told by any staff member at the hospital that she had pneumonia, or sepsis - only a stroke. How could she have had aspiration pneumonia and this not be known? The assisted living facility certainly should have checked her lungs, shouldn't they? Anyway, natural causes is checked on the death certificate. No autopsy was allowed to be performed - she was too old - age 90. I don't know why natural causes is checked when the pneumonia resulted from an accident. When younger people die from ingesting too many drugs and develop aspiration pneumonia, their cause of death is listed as accidental. Why not in this case? My mother in law has one accidental death policy and I am wondering if the same sort of fiasco with the death certificate is happening once again. Someone mentioned that accidental death policies are so cheap because they are seldom paid but the policies my father-in-law had paid out because his cause of death was changed to accidental.
Fast forward to this year. My mother in law was ill since December, 2010. Hospitalized, doctors could find nothing wrong with her. She lived in an assisted living facility that cost $7,500 per month - but she could only stay in her condo if she was ambulatory and the facility determined that she was well enough to not need 24-7 care. After being hospitalized, she was discharged to the nursing home at the assisted living facility. She deteriorated rapidly and my husband wanted her to return to her condo since the nurses were mean in the nursing home and my mother-in-law just slumped in a wheel chair all day. So the assisted living facility said my mother in law could only return to her condo if we hired 24-7 care to stay with her in her condo. So we did. She seemed to get better. The staff there are nurses, a doctor etc. Then she developed a pressure sore on her tailbone because we found out that she was not staying in bed at night, she was sitting in a chair since it hurt her too much to lie down. She had something wrong that had not been diagnosed. She was scheduled to return to the hospital for treatment of the pressure sore and further tests but she fell out of the chair and was found on the floor. We were told by the hospital that she had suffered a stroke. She had tests but they didn't find anything except for an enlarged gallbladder (& the stroke). Then she had another stroke, or the 1st stroke caused her other arm to become dis-functional. Then she died. She died within 1 week of going to the hospital. Cause of death written on the death certificate? Aspiration pneumonia which caused sepsis which caused cardiopulmonary arrest. We were never told by any staff member at the hospital that she had pneumonia, or sepsis - only a stroke. How could she have had aspiration pneumonia and this not be known? The assisted living facility certainly should have checked her lungs, shouldn't they? Anyway, natural causes is checked on the death certificate. No autopsy was allowed to be performed - she was too old - age 90. I don't know why natural causes is checked when the pneumonia resulted from an accident. When younger people die from ingesting too many drugs and develop aspiration pneumonia, their cause of death is listed as accidental. Why not in this case? My mother in law has one accidental death policy and I am wondering if the same sort of fiasco with the death certificate is happening once again. Someone mentioned that accidental death policies are so cheap because they are seldom paid but the policies my father-in-law had paid out because his cause of death was changed to accidental.
Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2011 11:04 pm Post Subject:
You seem to be an educated person, but you have written one rambling paragraph that is nearly impossible to follow.
When younger people die from ingesting too many drugs and develop aspiration pneumonia, their cause of death is listed as accidental.
How do you know this? Are you saying this is true 100% of the time?
Pneumonia is not an accident, it is a medical condition.
Aspiration pneumonia is also not an "ACCIDENT" and it is not something "you develop". It is a medical condition caused by swallowing and having something "go down the wrong pipe" as we all may say -- having some substance enter the lungs as we breath when it should have entered the stomach when we swallow. Could be saliva, vomit, chlorine bleach. It happens to persons when they are awake, when they are asleep, and when they are unconscious (as when under anesthesia or from some other cause, such as a drug-induced stupor). The ingestion of something into the lungs may be accidental, but the pneumonia is still a medical condition that can usually be treated successfully with medication.
How could she have had aspiration pneumonia and this not be known? The assisted living facility certainly should have checked her lungs, shouldn't they?
Have you ever been ill and not known it? It happens to people all the time. Ingest some toxic substance in your food, and pass it off as the flu. Have the flu and discover later that you were suffering from West Nile Virus? Had a runny nose and did not know that it was spinal fluid being discharged due to meningitis?
Assisted living facilities are just that. They are not medical facilities, and they are staffed primarily with minimally skilled individuals under minimum supervision. By the time a resident becomes visibly ill to most of these staff persons, they have probably been ill for some time.
How could they not notice the decubitus ulcer (pressure sore)? Because they never looked for it. Ask any emergency room nurse, like my wife, how sick a person usually is before they come to the ER from the assisted living facility, and you might begin to understand how poor the care often is in those places -- only when someone is so sick they cannot be ignored do they call for the ambulance ride to the ER. And by then it might be too late.
I'm truly sorry your mother was paying $7500 per month for something probably worth 1/3 that much. But I also have to ask: Why was she not staying with you in your own home? You could have hired a trained nurse to live with her 24/7 for less than that.
These are all hard questions, and I don't mean to belittle you. Indeed, I am sorry for your loss. But you are trying to claim an accidental death under circumstances that I doubt are anywhere close to accidental. Unless someone can find an entirely different -- and truly accidental -- cause of death, you will waste both time and money attempting to collect on this claim as you have stated it.
I have a personal friend, whose mother-in-law had an accidental death benefit contract, fell and struck her head on the corner of a countertop, and died three days later due to bleeding in the brain. Obviously an accidental cause, right? Wrong. The hospital blood work indicated that there was an elevated level of one of her prescribed medications upon being received in the ER. The only way that could happen is if she took too much of the medication, a side effect of which was dizziness.
The insurance company refused to pay the claim, and it was not worth the money to hire an attorney in an attempt to fight their decision in order to collect the $10,000 benefit.
This is mostly just another very sad tale of accidental death benefits vs. life insurance. If your mother had had life insurance, this discussion would not be taking place. You recognized that when you wrote: "Someone mentioned that accidental death policies are so cheap because they are seldom paid." That statement is true.
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