emergency contact

[Morgana]

Thanks all, these are all good suggestions, but I don't seem to have made my goal clear. What I was looking for was someone I can list on forms as an emergency contact -- in other words, someone who will satisfy other people's basic requirement -- not someone who will actively go to bat for me in an emergency, or is somehow more ideal than a friend/relative would be, or a general emergency plan.

I'm finding that, quite often, if you leave this spot blank on official documents, nobody will follow up. And I could always make something up. But I'd rather do it the responsible way.

The rest of the emergency-preparedness information is all useful and most of us could stand to up our game on this (myself included) so thanks for that as well. My most immediate/pressing goal is to get this picky bureaucratic problem handled, but in the long term obviously the other things are more important.

 

[WanderingRose]

That’s a great idea, abnorm.

My thought with the card behind my drivers license is the same…they’re going to want to know who you are, and when they pull out the license they will see the med information card.

Also in there is an alert that I have an animal.

 

[Happy Camper]

Just floating this in case someone has an idea. If not, that's OK; apparently there's not much call for this.

I'm looking for some professional/commercial person/office that would keep some basic info about me on file -- like my advance directive, will, insurance info, etc. -- and agree to have me list them as emergency contact whenever I have to give one (like on a job application or medical form), and then if they are ever called they just hand over the info I gave them and don't do anything else.

I've had no success googling and the state bar association's free-advice person wasn't much help. I'm brainstorming various options but maybe someone here will have a brighter idea or have actually found a working solution. All ideas welcome! Thanks.

After reading your initial post again, a few things come to mind.

You can probably accomplish this. But you'll need two separate things.

1. Contact person for job or medical.

You can probably find someone here that would be willing to take a call on your behalf when needed. When asked for this information, I only ever give the name, number, and city of the contact person. That's enough. Don't overthink it.

2. A safe place to hold your documents that will release them under specific conditions.

You can scan everything onto a USB drive and password protect it. Have physical copies elsewhere for redundancy.
Since you obviously have someone that you would want to have those documents, give them the password for the drive ahead of time and ask them to put that password somewhere safe.
Set it up so that USB drive gets delivered to your person if there's an emergency.

Maybe a padded envelope that gets mailed and is already prepaid and labeled. Maybe it's specific instructions on the fridge like Doug mentioned.

Point is, there's a few ways to do this. I'm sure there's an easier way that I didn't think of.

 

[Morgana]

I'm not overthinking it; the suggested solution will not work for various reasons at least partially already described above; and there are not, let me say it one more time, multiple obvious solutions to this. If there were, I would probably have found them, or someone would probably have posted concrete specifics here.

I don't mean to be ungrateful. But when somebody posts here on a challenge they are working really hard to resolve, a vague statement that "there are solutions" does not help. If you don't have an answer, it's fine not to give an answer. I made it clear at the outset that this was probably a long shot.

 

[Happy Camper]

Fair enough. I was just giving an answer that fit the information given. To actually tailor a solution for you, it would require information that neither of us want me to have.

 

[bullfrog !]

Put it all at the end of voice message intro on a cheap cell phone with its own number that you never use. Might work? Use it to direct them to a secure website with all the stored information?

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

Before hiring a lawyer to advise you here are some places I would check:
- homeless advocacy groups. You can't be the first person to need this.
- state or local elder care advocate.
- nursing home resident advocate.
- hospital patient advocate.
- nomad groups: Escapees, Sam's Club, AAA, HOWA, et.al.
- your primary care doctor.
- state attorney general.

A quick Google search did not bring up any definitive qualifications, authority, responsibility, or liability this person will have. Seems every state has their own requirements, so you may have to check with your home state.

 

[Carla618]

Last night I looked up bank executors, but found out banks do that for people with large estates. But, I just found the "private social worker". In this article the author said he found one for only $300.00.

https://jonathanturley.org/2019/06/08/the-benefits-of-hiring-a-private-social-worker/

 

[Morgana]

Thank you, everyone.

 

[Morgana]

So to update / wrap up --
The person who agreed to do this for me is a "private fiduciary" and a CPA. If anyone else needs a similar service, I think either of those terms would make a good start to a search (but not everyone who meets that description offers this service).

This arrangement worked for me because I have extremely simple wishes and minimal belongings -- also because I found a helpful person. (She usually does this type of service for people who are also hiring her to do other things, so it took a little tweaking to arrange to do JUST this thing, but she was willing to work through it.)

To anyone else going down this road, I'd say IF you have the money, hire an estate lawyer. OTOH if you want to do what I did, then be prepared to make a bunch of phone calls and hear a few "no"s. And get your opening pitch as short and simple as possible -- people aren't used to being asked for this.

It was hard work but it was worth it. I only did it to (in my mind) fulfill this stupid paperwork requirement. But it forced me to think through some things, and having a bug-out plan is good for peace of mind.

 

[WanderingRose]

Glad you got this resolved, Morgana.

 

[peteg59]

Sounds like you have a handle on what you were trying to accomplish. Hopefully it'll now work as you desire, if/when the time comes to implement it?

Unfortunately, our country's HIPPA laws stifle info sharing between hospitals and doctors, to the point of being dangerous in getting one's info disseminated to an appropriate party in a timely fashion.

 

[WanderingRose]

Actually, I mentioned to a doctor on Friday how useless HIPAA laws seem to be.

Our medical information seems to be widely available electronically, between doctors offices and differing medical systems.

The results of an annual test I had last fall had not made it’s way to this doctor, once I said where I had it and when, they were able to access it.

No release of information, nothing.

Privacy is no longer a thing in this country.

 

[Morgana]

Are you sure (not a rhetorical question, maybe you are sure) you didn't sign something when you took the test? Or at the HMO or clinic or whatever entity (if any) the two offices have in common?
I've been growling to myself lately about all the releases I have to sign. A couple of providers just hand you that portable signature block anymore -- how do you even know you're signing what they say you're signing? I religiously ask for copies of everything I sign, but in case of a conflict I'm not sure it would do me much good.

 

[WanderingRose]

I still sign releases of information, but they are not all encompassing or for any medical system anywhere in the country.

The truth is, there are a couple of large electronic systems that house most of our electronic records in this day and age, and they can be accessed anywhere in the country, without you signing a release of information.

I figure it is in my best interest, but I still am more than a bit appalled