my mother in law died in december at cook sprins nursing home. she was under hospice and was approved for medicaid in feb 2016. we had an alabama family trust. the family trust settled with medicaid and the balance of the trust was dispursed to the three children in march 2017. just got a letter from medicaid from medicaid saying we them almost 29 thousand dollars because they just received a bill from hospice for $31582.90. we thought that hospice was paid by medicair. not sure what to do. please advise
I would tell the collection agent two things---
1. Hospice is covered by Medicare
2. The estate observed the required waiting period for bills (you did this right?) and has now been distributed and closed.
CMS (Centers for Medicare & medicaid aka the Feds) should have sent mom notices of payments for coverage under Medicare. Like for my mom, who was in a NH on hospice (Medicare benefit) & Medicaid, there would be a posting each month on the CMS statement of all medicare payments. It was around $ 4,200 each mo to her hospice provider alone & paid to hospice directly. The CMS notices came about every 3 weeks & we still got them for over about year after she died as there are always errors or delays. I'd suggest to look there first to see IF the hospice was paid by Medicare first.
If so, then there's a billing snafu.
? For you? The hospice provider did you or mom select them? Or did the NH tell you it was going to be XYZ hospice?