Ridiculous county social services runaround thread incoming:

So due to various life circumstances related to muscular dystrophy and personal family issues, I need to start having personal care aides for myself

Would’ve started the process earlier, but the whole pandemic thing was a big monkey wrench in everything.
Anyway, the process starts with contacting the county social services office. Navigating that to find the right person to talk to is its own ordeal

Luckily, I have a person that can essentially be thought of as a social worker/caseworker that was able to put me in contact with the correct people. I received the necessary paperwork to start the process today. Here’s where the nonsense starts:

I’m not allowed to fill out any of the paperwork. Only my doctor is. Why’d they send it to me at all then? Don’t know. But the paperwork has to be done within the next 30 days and requires a full doctor’s examination within the last 30 days as part of it

The office is not in the city where I live, but a neuromuscular specialist about an hour and a half from where I live. Literally have an appointment there in 40 days, so now it seems like I need a different one a few weeks sooner

And the paperwork seems to counterindicate sending it to the office electronically. So it seems like I need to be the middleman between the county social services office and my doctors for all information and paperwork

Then when this paperwork is sorted out, I’ll have a meeting with someone from social services in which I’ll need to describe my daily life and daily needs that I’ll need help with and the number of aide hours I get will be determined from that

You have to be very clear and very focused and be careful about any comments you make in this meeting or else you could get short changed on hours. I’ve been this far in the process a few years ago and ended up with only 3 hours of help per day

No one’s going to work for the low pay that PCAs generally get for those few hours, so it was basically useless, and I eventually timed out of the whole process and had to start over(where I am today)

From here, I have to decide on which aide agency out of quite a few to use and there is little to no difference between any of them. Once I make the decision I have to meet with the aide agency so they can explain their hiring process and give me more paperwork to deal with

Then I’m required to find, interview, and hire the people to be my aides myself. But then they need to be directed to the aide agency to go through more paperwork and training in order to be paid through the agency and my insurance

All this on top of everything else going on. I’m an adult and I have a normal adult life with normal and very specific adult problems. I don’t have time for this runaround

There’s enough trouble with all of my other medical stuff, dealing with insurance, normal interpersonal relationships, trying to have a career in some way (I have a Masters degree in Chemical Engineering, it shouldn’t be this tough), etc.

Did I mention I’m having some difficult family issues at the same time? And how unsafe it seems to be hiring, interviewing, and working with so many random people during a pandemic? It’s so incredibly overwhelming

End of thread