Does anyone here currently pay for an Assisted Care Facility?

[SS Junk]

if this were a more PC forum i would tell my fathers story, but i can just imagine the shit that would get spewed from a certain few members. to the OP. we have been going through this for a long time if you want to PM me i can possibly offer a little more insight

Interesting. The one who has repeatedly shit talked family members on this site is afraid of the same thing. Look at you being the whiny bitch yet again.

[SS Junk]

My wife was at Orchard Park Assisted Living in Murphy for 16 months at $3700 to $4100 a month. I moved her home for 3 months last September and then she got aspiration pneumonia (she has Parkinsons/Lewy Body dementia). Since the day after Thanksgiving, she has been back in the hospital (3 weeks in ICU), then LTAC and now rehab at San Remo in Richardson off Shiloh and Renner. The Medicare rehab is free the first 21 days and then I pay $32/day on my secondary policy I have thru Raytheon/UMR up to 100 days. Then it's on my pocketbook after that.

My dad passed away from LBD. Shitty disease. He was misdiagnosed complements of Kaiser and they ended up giving him medication which put his symptoms into overdrive. He died within six weeks of getting sick.

[32vfromhell]

This thread and what im going through right now is very sobering on how poorly we all are prepared for the end, and how these decisions are just plain awful.

I spoke for a long long time with my dad tonight, hearing stories about my grandmother (she had MS from her early 20s until she died at 41) and my father told me about the time his father told him and his sister that their mother just passed away at the nursing home, and the relief in his father's eyes that he saw on the weight that was lifted after struggling with home care and nursing homes for years.


Jesus Christ, I know i promised myself never to drink when sad, but right now i want to have a very strong drink.

[RWhite]

I think and hope you'll be happy with Visiting Angels. I deal a lot in the field and have heard nothing but good things about them. They are very picky who they hire.

We have a Filipino woman from Visiting Angels who has been with us since September. I am very impressed with her. Our house has never been cleaner and so neat, with every thing in order. She prepares us meals and she treats my wife like she is her mother. I couldn't have a better caregiver help me. She can hardly wait until Mary is back home (and me too)!

BTW, San Remo skilled nursing rooms are $6000 to $6500 per month!

[ceyko]

I inspect nursing homes, assisted living, retirement communities, etc. I will tell you right now that there isn't a good choice. You'll screw your family member by putting them in one.

Work hard all their life, sacrificing just to make sure their family gets the best, for what? To live out their last year's begging for a Jamaican woman to come give them a shitty meal and hopefully the right medication.

I've done work in low and high end ones and I can't argue with this at all. It's really unfortunate the amount of money (makes the cost in this thread seem like chump change) some charge just to get a room - and then it's all pretty much the same from there. ...and the horrible things that the staff say, it would floor you.

What I don't know is if it would be more realistic to house your loved one and have an in-home nurse...etc.

[RWhite]

What I don't know is if it would be more realistic to house your loved one and have an in-home nurse...etc.

It is a no brainer for me. I have been involved with my immediate family (father, mother and now my wife) care over the years in nursing homes, skilled nursing homes, memory care, assisted living, etc. etc. Whatever you call them, the problems are all the same. You can have a nursing home in Seagoville or in affluent North Dallas, etc. The help is treated the same by the owners and the their pay is the same.

If you have the time (I retired a year early to take care of my wife), you can take much better care of your loved ones at home. Believe me, I have seen it all over the past 10-15 years. I could go on and on about the situations I have seen and been involved with. Medicare provides a lot of the needed equipment you may need at home. You just have to work with your doctor to write the script on what you need. I can't tell you it will be easy working with Medicare, but once you go thru the hoops a few times, it's fairly easy to is easy to get what you need at home. No one tells you what you need or have available as benefits. You need to just ask a lot of questions. Of course, Google helps also. You have to be persistent.

Now, off to be with the wife at the rehab place!

Good luck if you have to go thru all of this.

[8mpg]

I've done work in low and high end ones and I can't argue with this at all. It's really unfortunate the amount of money (makes the cost in this thread seem like chump change) some charge just to get a room - and then it's all pretty much the same from there. ...and the horrible things that the staff say, it would floor you.

What I don't know is if it would be more realistic to house your loved one and have an in-home nurse...etc.

You say its horrible to say until you work in the field. Being a nurse, you dont understand it until you do it for a living. Being a nurse sucks. People are rude to you most of the day, ungrateful. Most feel they are overworked (some are lazy, some places will work your ass off). There are times you go 12 hours and you pee once. Healthcare has gone in the wrong direction. Most people couldnt care for their own parent at home. How do you expect a low paid worker to care for 20? Assisted care/nursing home is filled with old people nagging all day long. They call and call and call. You just cant win. There probably is elderly abuse, but let me tell you, old people will physically abuse staff members.

If you want high quality care, you have to pay for it. Its the same as most industries. If you want good care and concierge service from a hotel, dont go to Motel 6.

[Chili]

We used to have options through my work insurance for elder care (for parents, mainly). Actually, the last I recall seeing the offer was when I worked for GE, I don't think my current employer offers it.

Some of you who foresee possibly having to take on this burden at some point may want to see if your employers offer anything.

I hope I die before getting to that point (of needing to go into a facility until death).

My grandmother has been the only one that was in a possible position to have to go into a facility, but my aunt wouldn't let that happen so she took her in. She lived there until passing (about 7 years) as she deteriorated from Alzheimers . My grandparents assets had been put into a trust but by the time she passed all of their assets had been exhausted anyway (for a couple of years). My aunt paid for the bulk of the in home care providers and my mom helped some (few hundred a month) for the remainder of her life.

My aunt also made the offer to employ the care provider directly to save cash for her, and increase the pay for the provider. In fact, the last year or so the care provider actually lived with my aunt (my uncle passed from brain cancer a few years earlier, so it was just my aunt and grandmother in a pretty big house)..

[The King]

The LTC policy I have now makes no differentiation in benefit amounts whether care is provided in-home or in a facility. When I first purchased it, I went with facility-only care because it was less expensive. When the policy terms were updated after ten years or so the facility-only option was eliminated.

[ceyko]

You say its horrible to say until you work in the field. Being a nurse, you dont understand...

I can understand the frustration, however the shit I've heard first hand and been told by others is simply inexcusable. These people WERE paying for the service, extremely high end.

I do not want to say anymore, but it was not just bitching and complaining. I get that, it was much worse.

[8mpg]

I can understand the frustration, however the shit I've heard first hand and been told by others is simply inexcusable. These people WERE paying for the service, extremely high end.

I do not want to say anymore, but it was not just bitching and complaining. I get that, it was much worse.

Thats unfortunate to hear.. I cant excuse other peoples attitudes. Dont forget though, its hearsay and there are definitely 2 sides to every story. Im not saying the healthcare "professionals" are above doing horrible things. We have stuff we can track in the hospital (medication times, call light response times, etc) and people LOVE to blow things out of proportion. It might feel like 30 minutes when you want something but it was 12 minutes.

[95DRGT]

I've been living this for the past 18 months. It was the hardest decision I've had to make was to put my Dad in assisted living. I explored many options but we simply could not handle the 24hr care my dad needed at home. He had dementia and was very mobile and strong.

We went with the best one we felt comfortable with after visiting about 20 and decided on a Brookdale community in Mansfield. It cost about $4200 monthly. The key to make sure you are getting 'decent' care is to visit daily if you can, even if for an hour. Question and follow up with staff and management and they will know you just didn't warehouse your love one and be more attentive.

Now when the money ran out and I racked up a healthy debt, I had to find a place that would take him for his SS only plus what Medicare would cover. That was a huge fucking mistake as it ultimately caused my dad's death due to over medicating him and him falling to which he never recovered this past June.

Avoid Oakwood in Arlington- fucking deplorable and neglectful and considering legal action.

I know this has made me think a lot of my mortality and how I do not want to live past a certain age especially if I'm all not 'all there'.

I've told my wife when the time comes and I can still drive go and rent the exotic and I'll launch that bitch off I35W South ramp from I20 in the middle of the night.

[8mpg]

I've been living this for the past 18 months. It was the hardest decision I've had to make was to put my Dad in assisted living. I explored many options but we simply could not handle the 24hr care my dad needed at home. He had dementia and was very mobile and strong.

We went with the best one we felt comfortable with after visiting about 20 and decided on a Brookdale community in Mansfield. It cost about $4200 monthly. The key to make sure you are getting 'decent' care is to visit daily if you can, even if for an hour. Question and follow up with staff and management and they will know you just didn't warehouse your love one and be more attentive.

Now when the money ran out and I racked up a healthy debt, I had to find a place that would take him for his SS only plus what Medicare would cover. That was a huge fucking mistake as it ultimately caused my dad's death due to over medicating him and him falling to which he never recovered this past June.

Avoid Oakwood in Arlington- fucking deplorable and neglectful and considering legal action.

I know this has made me think a lot of my mortality and how I do not want to live past a certain age especially if I'm all not 'all there'.

I've told my wife when the time comes and I can still drive go and rent the exotic and I'll launch that bitch off I35W South ramp from I20 in the middle of the night.

Not to play devils advocate...but is there a chance he fell cause he was old? Old people fall all the time. I have patients that fall on almost a daily basis at home. They look like they have been beat up. They can be strong and independent but sometimes they randomly get weak, their blood pressure can drop, they run into things because of vision going south, they accidentally overmedicate themselves, etc.

Over medicating patients is the responsibility of the nurse but dont forget the Dr who is prescribing them. If they see the man cant walk with his eyes open and he is trying to fall asleep, I would have an issue. If he is awake and moving and falls, it happens. A lot of these places are horrible but it cost a lot of money to run any healthcare anything. The government oversight, the insurance companies, medicare not willing to pay shit. Realistically, could you care for someone 24 hours a day, serve them 3 meals, get their medications from the pharmacy, bathe them for $2k a month?

[95DRGT]

Not to play devils advocate...but is there a chance he fell cause he was old? Old people fall all the time. I have patients that fall on almost a daily basis at home. They look like they have been beat up. They can be strong and independent but sometimes they randomly get weak, their blood pressure can drop, they run into things because of vision going south, they accidentally overmedicate themselves, etc.

Over medicating patients is the responsibility of the nurse but dont forget the Dr who is prescribing them. If they see the man cant walk with his eyes open and he is trying to fall asleep, I would have an issue. If he is awake and moving and falls, it happens. A lot of these places are horrible but it cost a lot of money to run any healthcare anything. The government oversight, the insurance companies, medicare not willing to pay shit. Realistically, could you care for someone 24 hours a day, serve them 3 meals, get their medications from the pharmacy, bathe them for $2k a month?

No my Dad played competitive tennis up until two years ago when he started to lose his mind. Even before I got involved he would walk 2 to 5 miles a day. This is a man is great physical shape but did not who or were he was. He was always on the go and couldn't sit through a movie, had to be doing something or going to see somebody.

The first assisted place that was good but expensive had this huge inner courtyard were he could just make the rounds over and over and chat it up with the ladies. By the next time he came around it was a new day for him so he would just go and go.

He was in the last facility 12 days and sent to hospital twice for falls. When I showed up one day in the middle of the day, the nurses looked freaked out. They were all playing on their phones and laughing and not a damn one doing anything. I found my dad outside of his room down the hall of the nurses station strapped to a recliner whacked out on some drug. When I questioned them about it and started raising hell they said he would not stop walking (you think) and they had to drug him so they could watch him.

When he did finally get out of the chair he busted his head open cause he was so messed up. In the 8 times I went in there I never saw another visitor. That hell hole is nothing more than a warehouse for the indigent to die. I'm constantly second guessing myself about that,but was out of money.

He was in the hospital 30 days prior to going in there for a bad UTI. We had run out of money and used the hospital resources to help place him. I trusted the social workers at the hospital for placement as I assumed they would find decent accommodations.

The real kicker was I was told by the social worked I would get to check out the facility chosen. I headed to the hospital to see him one day and poof his fucking room is empty and he has already been shipped off. I get to the facility and they whisk me off into business office to start filling out paperwork so they can get their government money and show me all these fancy pictures and explain their excellent services. When I ask to see my dad and tour the place, the lady passes me off to a nurse and won't even walk in the back. I knew right there and then it was the wrong place and I should have done something different immediately- terrible feeling and back against the wall is an understatement.

[8mpg]

Sorry to hear that man...really am. Its a hard choice and you can only do what you can do for your father. Be proud you were able to let him to go a nice place and paid for it. Most people cant afford it or dont want to afford it.