From the Texas Tribune
“Staffing shortages and mismanaged care can delay when Texans on some Medicaid programs are discharged from hospitals. This can cost the state more and take a toll on patients and caregivers.
After surviving five surgeries and near organ failure, Kaitlyn Cunningham just wanted to go home. Instead, she would face another trial — fighting her way out of the hospital.
Cunningham would spend an entire additional month confined to the second floor of Cedar Park Regional Medical Center, snared in a tangle of insurance denials, care needs and coverage confusion.
‘That’s our whole world, from there to here,’ her mother, Kathy Cunningham, said while pushing her 33-year-old daughter’s wheelchair down the hallway. Kaitlyn Cunningham, who has cerebral palsy and is nonverbal, enjoyed sitting in front of the windows next to the hospital’s elevators; sometimes, turkey vultures would strut across the roof.
But the mother and daughter couldn’t just leave. Doctors agreed that Kaitlyn Cunningham was healthy enough to discharge from the main hospital after already being there for one month, but she needed continued nursing care to fully recover: to maintain the tracheostomy tube in her neck and to use the wound vacuum that helped close her stomach.
Trying to secure that care, though, would send the Cunninghams into a dizzying circle of siloed programs — an experience not uncommon for medically complex Texans, especially those who are on Medicaid waivers, specialized programs that offer services like caregiving and therapies.”