Politics and Hospice

You would think that one thing where politics and legal wrangling wold not be found is in hospice.
After making the painful decision that it was time to call in hospice for my mother's care in the nursing home, we found out that it is not as simple as we thought.Already stressed by making that call and all of the implications of it, we were looking forward to a simple transition for the hospice team coming in and taking over.

After very careful research and talking to people in the know, we chose XYZ hospice for the job. Well, we soon found out that XYZ did not have a contract with the nursing home where Mom is. We were assured though, that it was just a matter of getting a contract with XYZ, and checking out their references. A simple formality, at least that is what we thought. But nothing is ever as simple as it seems. We were told by the nursing home that ABC hospice was already in place at the home, so why did we not want to use them. Well, the reason we did not want ABC was because we were told by health care professionals in CDA that ABC was not as caring nor as professional as XYZ. The family stuck by our guns are once again said that we wanted XYZ.

The nursing home admin said, no problem, they would get a contract with them. We called XYZ and they said the nursing home was making unreasonable contract demands, and even said to XYZ, why does the family just not go with ABC. XYZ told the nursing home it was because the family wanted them, and they wanted to honor the family's wishes. XYZ redid the contract on our behalf, count them-four times to try and please the nursing home. It appears that the the attorney's for the nursing home kept finding objections to the XYZ contract, and it needed to be redone again. OK, fine, but the clock is ticking rapidly, and my mother is declining at an alarming pace.

So, with regret, we will ask ABC to come in on Monday. We give up , and once again politics win.
I guess a dying person's care is not as important as politics and contracts.