8 Mistakes People Make When Choosing Assisted Living and our comments below.
By Shawn McGivney MD, RFA
The article from A Place For Mom is a good general article. We feel it could be more helpful if it provided a little more detail on how to do the 8 things. Just saying “don’t over look future needs” or don’t judge a book by its cover, or choose a community to match your parents needs are just not detailed enough.
This discussion of care applies to all care settings Assisted Living, Home Care, Hospice Care, Dementia Care, Alzheimer’s Care, Memory Care, Residential Care. Care is a service and you need to understand you are buying the skills of knowledge but also compassion, dedication, caring, which might be even more important skills than hard medical or nursing skills. Indeed, the social skills are often the therapy for aging, dysphoria, depression, cognitive loss, and promoting people to feel good as they see they need increased levels of care.
We want to share our comments to that with you.
Our comments
Great article. I think the details are given better at We Are Different
You need to meet the management, administrator, and care givers. This article seems to
come up short of saying that but that is the only way you can see into the middle
chapters of this article.
Second, Continuity of Care is not mentioned. Shift work, A La Cart billing tend to promote lack of continuity of care and relationships.
Third, we agree with don’t go it alone, don’t judge only by proximity, don’t find a place
with an isolated private room because you as a younger, non sick, persons would choose
that, choose for your parents who need assistance and will need even more assistance
and remember it is the staff who provide the caring and care now and in the future.
Meet the entire care giving team including the management! We find superficial discussions like this are too general to be really be helpfull and can be misleading if you don’t get these details. When faced with a social and financial decision of this magnitude take the time to meet everyone involved in the care starting at the top. The management does impact the care the staff provide. Socially, you can be respected for finding the most cost
effective and best care and set the example for your entire social system. You can
save money when compared to the usual course of a bait and switch type A La Cart
system where they get you in for the room and meals AND NO, OR MINIMAL CARE OR ASSISTANCE, and
then rasise the price to 4, 5, 6K when, not if, you need care. 24K / yr at 2K a month
or 48-72 K a year at prices with minimal assistance are worth spending the time to
meet the entire care team. Do not think you can or will get the same level or amount
of caring you most likely expect unless you meet the entire care team when choosing assisted living.
The management may define care as included in the contract DIFFERENTLY than you do. For example, how many have found out after they bought the insurance that the “support” they purchased had indeed be re sold many times and now was bundled into who knows what, giving you some phone care from another country?
Hands on management _ Do not accept management on paper, long distance calls to the corporate office as the main level of management. This is a service and you need to meet, shake hands, and know the direct care managers. If the Aide is the only person you meet and know like in home care then she is the de facto manager, owner, and aide but know that is who and what you are getting. You are most likely still the manager and highest level skill person on your team. You did not add any skilled people, advice, or a back up care team you added an aide and often times at a high dollar cost. Home care is a great option but be sure to consider who the day to day manager is since that is part of your care team.
To get these smiles you need to know the entire care giving team.
People, Pets and Flowers Can provide Smiles and Caring to go with your Physical Care.
This is a service industry and you need to meet the entire
care giving team from top to bottom to really start to compare what you are getting
for your 24 – 72K a year.
Take the time to learn all you can you will be socially viewed in the best light and
your parents will get the best care and best value for their health care dollars.
