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Important tools when choosing
a nursing home
Nursing homes, the residents they serve, and the care that they provide have changed dramatically over the last few years. In 1985, five percent of nursing home residents were discharged to their own homes. Today, that number is almost 50 percent.
Nursing homes are providing much more rehabilitative care today, as evidenced by the fact that there are over 100,000 nursing home admissions and discharges annually. At the same time, nursing homes are providing more skilled care than ever before as residents generally enter facilities with greater needs. And such care is reimbursed well below cost by Medicaid, the most common payer for nursing home care.
For the family of a loved one who requires such care, the decision of selecting a nursing home can be one of the toughest choices ever confronted in life. Both the state and the federal governments have created Internet tools for evaluating long term care providers. The nursing home provider community helped launch the first on-line “report card” in Massachusetts.
These tools can be helpful to families that are choosing a nursing home and should be considered. Use of these tools is not the only research that a family should do before making the decision. A visit to prospective facilities, discussions with administrators, staff, residents and their family members, and conversations with physicians, social workers, and others in the health care community will all provide critical guidance during the decision-making process. Each nursing home has different strengths, and families should carefully choose the nursing home best suited for the particular needs of their relative. As with most complicated decisions, “hands on” direct research will yield the most reliable information.
Nursing homes are vital community resources that provide quality care to those in need of round the clock care. As baby boomers age, these facilities will play an even more important role in the health care spectrum.
Excerpted with permission of author Abraham E.
Morse, who is President of the Massachusetts Extended Care Federation, the
state’s largest long-term care provider association.
Editor's
Note: Elder
Services has a listing of all nursing homes and assisted living facilities in
Berkshire County, and offers a broad spectrum of in-home services for elders.
For more information on
either type of long-term care, call 413-499-0524 or 1-800-544-5242.
The Ombudsman page
shows a listing of Berkshire County Nursing and Rest Homes and the Long Term
Care Planning Tool at
http://www.medicare.gov/ listed under Long
Term Care offers nationwide information.