The alert came through on my phone while the house was still pitch black. My eyes were heavy and dry, and I almost swiped the notification away thinking it was just another junk email about prescription drug plans. I have been managing Mom’s affairs for three years now, ever since the stroke took her ability to walk and, I reckon, a good chunk of her spirit along with it.
I tapped the Medicare link anyway. I wanted to make sure the routine blood work from last week had gone through the system without a hitch. I scrolled down the list of claims, my thumb moving in a tired, rhythmic motion, until I hit the section for rehabilitation services. My finger stopped moving entirely.
It said twenty sessions of physical therapy. It listed a provider I did not recognize, though the address looked suspiciously familiar. I stared at the screen, and I felt a strange, cold pressure building behind my eyes. Mom had not been out of her bed at the facility in six months. She could not even sit up on her own, let alone participate in a rigorous therapy program.
I started counting. Twenty sessions for last month. Then I clicked back, and another twenty for the month before that. I kept going until I was staring at a full year of records. Two hundred and forty sessions. The math felt impossible, like something out of a bad dream.
One hundred sixty-eight thousand dollars in charges, all billed to my mother’s name.
I sat there in the dark for a long time. I honestly did not even know where to begin. I thought about the facility staff, the nurses who always greeted me with a polite smile whenever I came to visit, and the administrator who had assured me just last week that Mom was doing fine. I started to wonder if I had gone crazy. Maybe she was getting therapy while I was asleep or at the grocery store.
No. I knew that was impossible. I looked at the provider name again. It was a private therapy group, but the address listed was the exact street address for the facility where Mom lived. I stood up and paced the kitchen, my heart thumping against my ribs. I felt like I was breathing underwater.
I thought about the times I had signed those stack of forms they gave me at the front desk. They always told me it was standard paperwork, just the usual things needed to keep her care running smooth. I had trusted them. I had signed them without reading every single word because I was always so tired and worried about Mom.
