Red Tape and Fools

I have been trying to assist my mother with some of the details of rearranging the pieces of her life following my father's death. My parents have virtually no material assets so on the surface it would appear that there would be few loose ends to tie up. Wrong!

First, Mother has to have a copy of her marriage certificate in order to satisfy the requirements of Social Security, I assume to have her income adjusted to what it should be as a surviving spouse. Of course, she had provided them one, she says, when she started drawing Social Security, but they do not have it on file. My sister ordered one from the state through the mail three weeks ago and it has not yet arrived. I have been trying to track it for her but to no avail. I made the mistake of telling her I ordered mine online and got it in three days.

Daddy had a Medicare suplement policy and the premiums for that were taken out of their bank account by automatic draft. Mother called the agency that had handled it asking for the man with whom they had worked. She was informed that he was no longer with the agency and that she would need to furnish a death certificate in order for the policy to be cancelled and the drafts stopped. This policy is a couple hundred dollars a month, which apparently at this point is about half her income. It didn't make sense to me that it would be that hard to cancel a policy that wasn't mandatory so I decided to go directly to the insurance company. It was a struggle, what with an automated phone system which did not give any option I thought applied, and an erroneous email address, but I finally reached them by fax. A nice lady called me back and said that the information given Mother was incorrect. They could stop the bank draft right away, although they could not stop August as it had already got to far along in the process. They would draw no more than August's. I was also told they would accept a photocopy of the death certificate, they would cancel the policy back to July 17, and the unearned premium would be refunded. This was all what I was hoping to accomplish, but I was surprised to actually get it done.

I will never understand why people who don't know what they are talking about can't keep their mouths shut and refer the questioner to someone who does know. Instead, they hand out important misinformation in a cavalier manner, never seeming to understand the damage they do to individuals but telling them the wrong thing. I may yet write a letter to that agency and rake the nameless woman who misled mother over the proverbial coals.

Speaking of fools - I would like to get my hands on the idiot who convinced my parents that the "scooter" Medicare bought for Daddy was the answer to all their prayers. It was totally inappropriate. My dad couldn't see very well and he had suffered a stroke. He wasn't by any means totally impaired mentally, but some of his thought processes were damaged. He was not a candidate to be meandering around on George, the name he gave his scooter, all over town. He almost got wiped out by a semi one day. Now Mother, who cannot see worth a darn either, has this scooter which is doing no one any good. Why couldn't Medicare have purchased the hearing aids instead?

Speaking of hearing aids - What kind of ethics does a doctor have who sells equipment costing several thousand dollars on $50 a month payments to 80 year old people? Now Mother has, in addition to a worthless scooter, two hearing aids which never did work well and are nearly out of warranty and an unpaid balance of over $1,500! No one will want to buy the hearing aids and spend $300 to have them retooled to fit. I wouldn't give you a dime for them without the warranty. They were in the shop more often than in Daddy's ears.

I haven't contacted the hearing aid people yet but it is on my to do list. I am waiting until I get all my questions in a row and all my anger under control. However, I do feel a strong need to also talk to the KDOA (Kansas Department on Aging).