funerals for medicaid residents

[ejpip1]

We had a case at my nursing facility of a resident who passed away about 2 weeks after admission and there were no funeral arrangements. The son said he didn't have the money to take care of a funeral. It took a few hours but we were fortunate enough to find a funeral home that would do a direct burial into a VA cemetery because the resident was a vet and since he was hospice they picked up some of the cost to the funeral home. Because of this we decided to review all the charts to ensure we had funeral arrangements and found several without. My question is....what do you do if the family won't make arrangements or can't afford to pay for the cost? I have a Medicaid only resident without a plan and a family who says they can't afford to pay. I can't do a circuit breaker because MD is picking up his care. He has no SS. Gets $40.00 per month personal spending. Does anyone know of any programs out there (especially in the state of Missouri) that would help with funeral arrangements? Does anyone have any ideas on how we can get families to make funeral arrangements? Even with his personal spending money I'm not sure we are allowed to set up any kind of funeral plan without the family approval. I would appreciate any thoughts! Thanks.

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

wow...how sad.....why did he have no SSI?

[Katieerin]

I am not sure how it works but one of my grandmothers passed and the funeral home had packages that had payment plans. Hers was 4000 but the family had to be set up on monthly payments for x amount of years. It may be something to look into because not all funeral homes have that.

[redmielita]

I would guess you will find a funeral home that will cooperate. We had one of our folks with DD pass, and family was willing to make arrangements but could not afford a lump sum. Ultimately, our resident had an inheritance that covered a large chunk, we were able to apply her personal allowance to some of what was left, and the funeral home agreed to a payment plan for the rest. Often times if you explain the situation at least one funeral home will be willing to help.