They said she's ready to go home. You know she can't be alone.
You are sitting in a hallway at Missouri Baptist or Mercy or St. Luke's with a folder of discharge papers in your lap. Three weeks ago your mother was walking to the mailbox. Now a planner has said "she can't be alone," a doctor has said "tomorrow," and you have a job on Monday. Nobody has told you what any of it means in hours.
This desk is for that week. Eight pages, each answering the question you are actually asking at 2am, each cited, each ending with what to do tonight. No prices. No diagnosis. Just the order of the tasks.
Find the day you are on
Day 0
Still in the bed. The folder, the notice, the two words.
These three pages are for the hallway.
Day 1
The car pulls in. The house, and the first night.
Day 2 to Day 3
The first full days. What to notice, and who to call.
Day 3 to Day 7
The week. The 72-hour wall, and the lesson everyone learns.
- Medicare does not pay for someone to stay with her. Medicare.gov says it does not cover 24-hour-a-day care at home, or personal care like bathing and using the bathroom when that is the only care she needs. Home health, if it is ordered, is visits, not presence.
- There is a piece of paper that can stop the clock. If she has Medicare, the hospital must give her a notice called An Important Message from Medicare, and if you ask for a fast appeal no later than the day she is scheduled to be discharged, she can stay while an independent reviewer decides.
- Your name on the chart is not a promise to do it all yourself. Missouri's CARE Act requires the hospital to let her designate a caregiver and to give that person the after-care instructions, and says in its own words that designation does not obligate any person to arrange or perform any after-care tasks.
Sources: Medicare.gov, Home health services; Medicare.gov, Fast appeals; Missouri Revisor of Statutes, RSMo 191.1150. Opened September 10, 2026.
Ask for a call back
Tell New Plan Care your name, your number and your town
This form goes to New Plan Care, the paid placement above, and nowhere else. It does not pair you with a list of companies, and it does not score anyone. If you would rather not type, Call (314) 405-0887. If you would rather read first, New Plan Care describes its own services on its own site.
We ask for a name, a phone number and a town or ZIP. We do not ask what she was in the hospital for, what she takes, or anything else about her health, and you should not type any of that here. Those questions belong with her doctor.
Two more desks
Two questions remain
Who do you hire, and how do you pay. Hire Caregiver STL is what to ask any company before you book an hour. Paying for Care STL walks the ways families actually cover those hours, and it also refuses to print a rate.
Help at home is non-medical: a person in the house, a meal, a hand on the stairs, a reminder that it is time for the tablets in her own box. Nobody who writes here can tell you what is wrong with your mother. Every page sends the clinical question back to her care team. The numbers on this desk each carry a public link, collected on the sources page. The only paid box on this page is the one labelled above. Who publishes this is on the about page.