Kaufman’s Long-Term Care Guide (Part 1)

Firstly, I’m here to offer you a friendly reminder: Sunday is Mother’s Day. Do with this reminder what you will .

And speaking of moms, if you’ve ever spoken with friends who have had to place their parents into a care facility, you know how difficult the process can be.

I was once asked to weigh in on how to make this decision, so I’ve done so, here. I did some digging, and I believe I’ve put together something helpful — and clear.

Because for far too many people, the “story” of their lives doesn’t end as well as they might have hoped. Care facilities (when they’re necessary) can be a blessing … and, well, they can be a nightmare. So, to help you make sure that your family (and your friends’ families) make the best decision possible, I’ve put together a two-part series on nursing home placement — and how to do it right.

Feel free to forward this along to anyone who may be affected by these issues. We’re always here to help! And, of course, I’d love your thoughts (as usual!)…

It’s a fact: most nursing home admissions happen under extremely stressful circumstances.

It’s an overwhelming task to find the best nursing home placement for a loved one, perhaps because, well … where do you even begin?

But, although this is a job that no one wants, it can be done with forethought and confidence that the best decision was made for everyone involved . It’s easier (and better for your loved one), if that first placement is well thought out. Yes–a nursing home resident can be moved from one facility to another, but this type of disruption is rarely in everyone’s best interest, as it can be disturbing on a variety of levels.

So it’s best to do it right–from the beginning.

Here’s a great place to start your search:

The Federal Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has a part of its Web site called “Nursing Home Compare”. Surprisingly (for a government service), it’s actually quite handy:

http://www.medicare.gov/NHCompare

This area of their site identifies facilities that have a history of poor performance–and ones which do well. In fact, the Nursing Home Compare site labels nursing homes it calls “Special Focus Facilities” — those that have repeatedly violated state and federal health and safety rules and that rank in the worst 5 to 10 percent of all inspected facilities in a given state.

You’ll want to cross those off your list from the very beginning.

Using this website, you can see detailed inspection information about each nursing facility that interests you, comparing various government-rated “quality measures” such as:

• Percent of High-Risk Residents Who Have Pressure Sores
• Percent of Residents Who Spend Most of Their Time in Bed or in a Chair
• Percent of Residents Who Have Moderate to Severe Pain
• Percent of Residents Who Were Physically Restrained
• Et cetera.

The site also rates the care and services that each facility provides to its residents, and allows you to view how each facility stacks up in staffing hours for each type of health care worker against the state and national averages.

And there’s other comparison tools available. For example, U.S. News and World Report has recently started providing rankings of America’s nursing homes.

http://health.usnews.com/senior-housing

These rankings rely on the data from the above government site–but they DO provide some advanced search engine capability. Nursing homes are presented in tiers within each star category, based on their total stars in all three of the major areas. The topmost tier, for example, consists only of five-star homes that got 15 stars. The next tier down is five-star homes with 14 total stars, and so on.

Within each tier, nursing homes are listed alphabetically. If you’re looking for a nursing home by location, and turn up too many, search terms can be combined in order to narrow the results.  For example, perhaps you want to search just for nursing homes that have a religious affiliation, or that accept Medicaid residents. Or you can launch a multi-pronged search, perhaps searching for non-profit four-star nursing homes that accept Medicaid and are located within 25 miles of a particular city.

However–here’s my big caveat when it comes to just looking at ratings: Nothing can substitute for visiting a nursing home in person. After all, every nursing home will have some deficiencies; working with extremely disabled and impaired persons is very difficult.

So, to find the best possible nursing home for your family’s situation, the first step is to determine what is most important for your family in looking for a facility. And I hope that you would agree that the potential resident’s needs and desires must be included in this evaluation. Consider variables such as location of the facility, whether a special care unit (such as for dementia) is available, and what types of payment sources are accepted.

The second step is to identify the facilities in your area which meet the criteria you have established.

In my next Note, I’ll give you some pointers on how to conduct an on-site tour properly–what to look for, questions to ask, etc.

Where To Find Help With Your Expensive Medicine

As the economy keeps sputtering, you need to find ways to keep your household costs down. Below is a great article on finding help on paying for prescriptions that are not covered by your health insurance.  As with everything, it helps to look for ways to shop the costs and finding strategies to save. This is one Tax deduction you don’t need.  Enjoy and let me know if I should be looking for more user friendly articles.

Help for prescriptions is available if you qualify. Prescription medication could be awfully pricey and maybe more so if you don’t have health care insurance. Help with prescriptions can make your recovery go a lot faster. For those patients with cancer, this is especially true.

Let’s say you have been receiving chemotherapy, however it causes an upset tummy, therefore you are given a anti-nausea medicines to go along with it. You will perhaps need an iron supplement too since the chemo will cause you to become anemic. This list could go on and on. What it amounts to is that a cancer patient can very easy be spending more for prescription medicine than their house payment! At this point you need to turn to a prescription program assistance.

What are you to do when you need help paying for your medicine?

The one thing you don’t want to do is stop taking your medicine. There are quite a lot of programs accessible which offer free and reduced cost patient assistance.

• Social Worker- Most hospitals boast a social worker that may help you acquire grants and other plans aimed at assisting you with your health care needs. This can be your initial stop in searching for assistance. Always enlighten your doctor if you cannot pay for medicine or treatment. He or she possibly will know of a package firsthand to support you, also.

• PPA- The Partnership for Prescription Assistance is a society intended at serving those that can’t find the money for their medications. They have produced a database of over 200  programs and over 5000 prescription medicine offered for reduced or no cost aid. They help in determining what you are entitled for and applying for the assistance. The assistance is free and accessible online.

• Drug Companies- A lot of patients wouldn’t think drug companies provide assistance, on the contrary many will. Johnson and Johnson provides a prescription medication plan for persons taking their prescription medicine and can’t manage to pay for them. Locate the maker of your drugs by asking your doctor of medicine or pharmacist and check the website for medicines assistance programs.