My, now in a nursing home, aunt got services from Visiting Nurse Service of Central Jersey. Under advice from my lawyer, it was cheaper to settle than to fight.

Argh!

Here’s the rest of the story.

My aunt needed home health aide services for four hours per day. This was arranged between her and Saint Peter’s hospital. I was involved as my aunt’s health care proxy. So everything was OK. Then, my aunt became lax about paying bills so as her HCP/POA and “favorite relative”, I started running her finances. We gave VNANJ her credit card and they started charging it for time billed. The aide was not the best, and that is another whole story, but there was not much I could do. I didn’t care for the arrangement especially since I wasn’t in the paperwork circle except as it pertained to the checking account. I asked verbally for them to cc me on the stuff but they cited “privacy”. Now I should have smelled a rat and raised a fuss then but I had a lot going on at that time.

Fast forward a few months and my aunt falls, breaks a bone, and goes from hospital to nursing home. First thing after the fall I (personally) call and stop the service.

But they keep billing. So I politely, at first, gripped.

Then, after a few MONTHS, they start dunning me for the accumulated balance. WT … … what kind of “barbara streisand” is this?

It appears that they “underbilled” my aunt for hours provided and “accrued” her payments.

I told them that wasn’t my problem.

Long story short, my lawyer can’t prove my side based on what I have and urged me to settle.

Against my better judgment, I did.

But I am definitely off the charts on this one.

Lessons Learned:

• All agreements must be in writing.
• All elder arrangements must be carefully supervised.
• All elder finances must be carefully documents.
• VNA Central Jersey is not to be trusted. They may have to be used but plan to watch them as you would a convicted felon counting money!

I just paid 5k$ of my aunt’s money for a very expensive lesson.

I heard that the aide sued VNACJ for a pay dispute. I wonder if I just got a certain end of the stick from that?

Please learn from my “mistake”. You don’t have to pay tuition at every school to learn.

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