The costs could be borne by the State but an evaluation is needed and the family members are not always informed
THE’Alzheimer’s it is a neurodegenerative disease with a chronic and progressive course that affects the lives not only of those who suffer from it but also of relatives and family members who have to take care of them. As the disease progresses, the patient with Alzheimer’s, but also with senile dementia or other similar pathologies, becomes incapable of living independentlyrepresenting a danger to himself and others and requiring continuous care.
Alzheimer’s and RSA costs
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Often the facilities that care for these patients have a cost even higher than 3 thousand euros per month, making a solution of this type not sustainable for everyone. According to estimates approx 3 million caregivers are left alone to face expenses that sometimes become unsustainable, with the risk of having to leave these patients alone or with limited care or inadequate facilities. What many people who deal with Alzheimer’s or senile dementia patients don’t know is that these expenses could be borne by the national health system. Recent sentences have reiterated that the expenses for particularly serious patients, considered to be highly integrated in healthcare, with the need for continuous care, should be supported by the national healthcare system.
State support
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In some cases, the patients’ families, aware of this legislative aspect, have turned to the courts with the judges who ruled in their favor, relieving them of tuition costs for hospitalization within social and healthcare facilities for Alzheimer’s or senile dementia patients. Lawyer Laura Catania of Morri Rossetti & Franzosi explained how the law regulates the essential levels of assistance that the national system is required to provide. When the services are highly integrated in healthcare they should be paid for by the state, because they do not refer to a treatment characterized by occasionality but aimed at patient care, personalized and of a welfare nature. The very survival of the patient would be at risk in the absence of this care and assistance, which is why they should be paid for by the national health system.
information and evaluation
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The central node is obviously the patient evaluationbecause if the medical report assesses that the patient has health as well as social-welfare needs, no expense should be borne by the patient who can also ask for it to be repaid. The RSAs themselves should inform the patients’ families of the possibility of starting the bureaucratic process to obtain a medical assessment to establish whether the nature of the hospitalization can be covered by the National Health System. In this way, on the one hand, requests for reimbursement of the amounts paid at a later time would be avoided and on the other, having to bear costs that would not be borne by the patients. Considering that today, if the state were to take charge of all the cases that could fall within this evaluation, lthe expense would be over 10 billion per yearthe need for a clear definition of the limits and parameters for which this expense must be supported by the state and not by families appears evident.
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