Category: Long-Term Care

New York Nursing Homes: Almost All Have Disease. What About Your State?

Post author By Debbie McDonald
Post date September 8, 2020
1 Comment on New York Nursing Homes: Almost All Have Disease. What About Your State?

This one tool shows current data on COVID-19 cases for nursing homes.

When my dad needed a skilled nursing facility to rehab from a traumatic injury, my first call was to a few friends who had first-hand experience with local facilities. My second action was to visit in person. However, I should have started with the data.

Data is even more important during COVID-19. While nursing home residents make up just 1.2 percent of the United States population, they account for about 40 percent of Covid-19 deaths, according to the New York Times.

This one tool can help inform your decision. Propublica, an independent nonprofit newsroom, offers an investigative tool to discover reported deficiencies, including COVID-19 cases, within nursing homes.

Propublic excerpt:

Some of the homes have been cited for putting residents at “immediate jeopardy” of harm or death, our analysis showed.

And many of the affected homes have been previously written up for violating federal standards. That’s true in California, New Jersey and New York.

We introduced this resource in 2012 as a way to search through tens of thousands of nursing home inspection reports to find problems and trends.

You can easily compare the nursing homes in your state based on how many times they have been cited for violating infection control protocols in the past three inspection cycles (roughly three years). We’ve also added data from The Washington Post on homes with COVID-19 cases.

The Nursing Home Inspect Tool shows this dashboard:

The dark red states show the highest rate of infectious disease rates in the nursing homes. Click on New York on the “Infection-Related Deficiencies” map and you get the report below, showing that 90% of all nursing homes in the state have had at least one case of COVID-19.

ProPublica’s reporting tool also shows that some nursing home chains seem to have higher rates of cases, as well. New Jersey’s CareOne facility had a consistently higher percentage of cases than other chains in the state.

Looking at these numbers may inspire us to consider more in-home care options—or at least to let data play a part in our decision.

How to Find Assisted Living After 100 Days in a Nursing Home?

Post author By Debbie McDonald
Post date September 8, 2020
No Comments on How to Find Assisted Living After 100 Days in a Nursing Home?

Medicare stopped paying for my dad’s rehab care at the nursing home. 100 days had passed and he wasn’t “progressing enough with his physical therapy,” which meant Medicare wasn’t going to pay any longer. We needed to find a place for my dad who still needed a lot of care, nearly 24/7 mainly because of injury induced dementia combined with his invincible spirit… “I was just practicing walking without my walker.”

If we were going to move my dad into an assisted living home I needed to know he’d not only be safe, but very well cared for and well, as happy as possible. How were we going to do that?

In Washington state, the Department of Social and Health Services allowed me to search for living options based on zip code as well as for facilities that accept Medicaid. Once I had a list narrowed down, I could view the “Reports and Inspection Letters” which allowed me to see the facility’s history of Inspections, Investigations and Enforcement Actions. This information helped narrow my list. From there I called to check on availability and get a sense of who was running the home. If it seemed like a possibility, I scheduled a visit. Through this process I was able to find what ended up to be a good fit for our dad.

To understand more about assisted living homes, here are some key assisted living facility stats from the National Center for Assisted Living
You can check facility care reports with your state agency. Find out what that is in your state at after55.com
This booklet has great information to assist with your search: Choosing Care in an Adult Family Home or Assisted Living Facility
As you visit facilities, it’s helpful to keep track of the information in a Housing Comparison chart.

May you find joy in loving one another well!

Elizabeth Dameron-Drew is a contributor to Ways & Wane. She walked closely with her own father through his years of waning. She lives near Seattle, Washington with her two teenage sons, husband and two rescue dogs. When she’s not working on this platform she’s probably creating books, sewing, or vacuuming, or cooking while listening to the rain and thinking about her next creative endeavor.

The ONE Local Secret to Finding In-Home Care

Post author By Debbie McDonald
Post date August 26, 2020
1 Comment on The ONE Local Secret to Finding In-Home Care

Who wants to be in a nursing home or assisted living facility? My dad certainly didn’t.

But I couldn’t quite figure out how to manage and afford the care that he would need at home. At the time, I couldn’t quit my job to provide that care myself. Maybe I should have. But that’s another story.

When searching online, it is hard to find an unbiased source. It turns out that it may have been more possible than I imagined to find home health care with the community resources already around me. Drumroll, please . . . this is the one unexpected source of local homecare referrals, even in these crazy times.

Call your local hospital and nursing home social workers.

Ask them for homecare referrals—even if your senior is not in the facility currently. Sounds simple, right? But it’s a gem.

Social workers can provide the following facilities:

A referral for home health services like physical therapy (covered by Medicare for a limited time.)
A referral for a homemaker evaluation. The agency will send someone to your senior’s home to discuss services that are needed. After an authorized agency makes their free evaluation, your state may provide caregiving services at no cost.
Their “preferred provider” list of caregivers (which you would pay for out-of-pocket.)

After narrowing your list, use Medicare’s checklist to interview each agency.
Their list includes questions like:

Do you have staff available at night and on weekends for emergencies?
Can you explain what my insurance will cover and what I must pay out-of-pocket?
Do you do background checks on all staff?

Also ask specifically about the sanitation and protection protocols they use during COVID-19.

Blessings as you help you senior well in these challenging times.

Tags Assisted living, in-home care, Nursing home

5 Warning Signs that Your Parent Needs Assisted Living

Post author By Debbie McDonald
Post date August 12, 2020
2 Comments on 5 Warning Signs that Your Parent Needs Assisted Living

He careened around the grocery store aisles driving the scooter they provided. I followed, picking up fallen cans and apologizing to shoppers who jumped out of his way.

My 80-year-old father was a home chef who was thrilled to put the dinner of his choice in his basket: ribs, asparagus and potatoes.

Sadly, those same ribs, asparagus and potatoes were molding in his fridge two weeks later.

Why didn’t he cook them? This really struck me because he loved to cook. Looking back, there were many reasons that all came down to . . . he just needed more help.

I think too, he was pretending that he was more capable than he truly was. We didn’t know that in the next year he would develop dementia and live in a hospital ICU, a nursing home, an assisted living memory care unit and a senior group home.

Look for these warning signs in our own senior’s home. Your elderly mom or dad may need more help than they are letting on.

Environment

The yard or house is not maintained.
There’s nothing to eat in the house.
The fridge contains expired or spoiled food.
Potholders or pans contain burn marks or a burning stove is left unattended.
There are multiples of the same item–10 bottles of ketchup?
Your senior has traffic tickets or the car has dents.
The car’s warning lights are on–gas, oil, check engine.

Social

Your senior stops doing the things they used to enjoy.
Your senior is spending days without leaving the house.
Your senior would benefit from someone checking on them every day.
Your senior complains of feeling lonely or abandoned when you are away.

Financial

Piles of mail in various places.
Unopened personal mail.
Increased thank you messages from charities.
Letters from banks or creditors.
The mail is unopened or bills are unpaid.

Up Close

Your senior is unsteady, wobbly, dizzy or very weak.
Your senior is looking unkempt, skipping showers, forgetting to shave.
Your senior has gained or lost weight, potentially having difficulty with cooking or shopping.
Your senior refuses to take medications or seek medical treatment.
Their personality has changed, become irritable or quiet.
To do lists that never seem to get done.
The house is overly cluttered.
Your senior is recovering more slowly from injuries or surgeries.

Cognitive

Your senior misses appointments, gets lost, forgets important information.
Your senior has difficulty performing familiar tasks.
Your senior substitutes unusual words
Your senior forgets recently learned information.
Your senior puts items in illogical places.
Your senior loses initiative and becomes passive or lethargic.
Your senior has trouble following directions.

Is it time to have a gentle conversation with your mom or dad about assisted living or in-home care?

Find templates and comparison tools for that housing or in-home help with the Digital Social Worker tool. It is full of curated links and to help you compare in-home care, a nursing home or assisted living options.

If you want the Warning Signs Checklist from above, download it here.

Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in every way as you help your senior in their waning phase of life.

Tags Assisted living, dementia