There are few people who want to live in a nursing home. In fact, I have never met any person who wants to live in a nursing home when faced with the actual prospect of living in one.
With that said, there comes a time when people do have to live in a nursing home. Some people’s care needs are so high that there family cannot care for them at home or they cannot receive the necessary care in an assisted living residence.
Many people seem to equate a family member’s residing in a nursing home with some sort of failure. As if mom’s living in a nursing home means that the family failed to provide the care that could have kept her at home. This simply is not the case. In fact, failing to provide mom with the care she needs at home could be far more detrimental to her than living in a nursing home.
With that said, not all nursing homes are alike. Some nursing homes are much nicer than others. In order to obtain a fairly accurate ranking of nursing homes in your area, I recommend that you visit the Medicare website, www.Medicare.gov.
This site provides a ranking of nursing homes in a given area based on several criteria. I have found the rankings on this site to be fairly in line with my general thoughts on a given nursing home.
I would also recommend that you personally visit nursing homes in your area to get a feel for the home. You should arrive at the home unscheduled and request a tour. You do not want to give the home the opportunity to stage your experience.
Once you have found a nursing home that you like, the question that may arise is, How do we get mom into this nursing home given her assets and income? A nursing home can cost anywhere from $8,500 to $12,000 a month. The better homes are in the $10,000 to $12,000 range. Obviously, that is a lot of money on a yearly basis, and few people have sufficient assets to pay for that care for an extended period of time.
Most people enter a nursing home after being discharged from a hospital. They enter the home for rehabilitation purposes. Most of these patients/residents only expect to reside in the nursing home for several days to several months, and most will, in fact, only reside there for that length of time.
On the other hand, there are those nursing home residents who simply do not rehabilitated sufficiently to return home. For these residents, the nursing home may become their permanently home.
Every week, I meet with clients who tell me that mom is in a rehabilitation center and they would like to get her into a nursing home. When I tell them that mom is already in a nursing home, they often become incredulous, almost refusing to believe that the rehabilitation center is a nursing home. I assure them that it is.
More importantly, once the nursing home has accepted mom as a rehabilitation patient/resident, the home, in most instances, cannot discharge mom if mom is desirous of becoming a long-term resident; this is true even if mom is going to qualify for Medicaid benefits immediately.
The nursing home may tell the family that they do not have a Medicaid bed or that there is a waiting list, but the fact of the matter is, mom is already in a bed in the facility and in almost every nursing home in New Jersey, every bed is dual certified for Medicare (which pays for rehab) and Medicaid. So, the reality is, mom is already in a Medicaid bed.
This can be very helpful to a family that is feeling pressured by the facility and would prefer that mom stay put.
What seems like a single decision often unfolds as a series of difficult choices. Balancing care needs, cost, and family dynamics can make the process more complex than expected. Taking the time to understand each piece can make the transition a little more manageable.