Welcome to the Senior Care continuum blog. We want to educate you on the choices in senior care that are available in the community. We are well aware of the difficulty and confusion seniors and families face when interacting with the senior care continuum and we hope to provide some clarity and assistance to help them choose the senior care setting that is best for them. We believe the reason this process of choosing the right senior care option is so confusing is because the community does not have enough real information to make the most informed choices. We believe seniors and families get a lot of advertising and general superficial advertising slogans but that those can be confusing. Can everyone really provide the “best” care? Can the person who is the sales person and who does not do the actual work practically promise how much care, attention and time another person, the caregiver who is getting minimum wage to take care of up to 50 residents, will have or be able to offer? We believe too many seniors and families experience choosing a care setting only to find out later that the caring, relationships, companionship, and continuity of care they wanted, expected from the advertising and sales pitches was not what they are getting. Then they realize that they do not have the information to choose and are practically relegated to “just accept” where they are as similar to all senior care settings. We also note that many are hoping that insurance pays for senior care but in fact if you have any resources most if not all senior care is private pay and are not covered by insurance. Senior care is expensive no matter what you choose which is why we stress finding the best you can. No matter what you do it will be expensive and in most cases the perceived difference in costs a sales person makes in a less complete care system will end up costing as much or more than a care setting with the highest degree of continuity and quality of care. We are here to tell help you see what we think you want and help you to find it on the confusing senior care continuum.
The senior care continuum table is a very general over view one can use to compare places on the senior care continuum. We have put the variables we feel are most important to consider down the left side (continuity of care, emotional health, control, staff skills and attitudes,) and the senior care settings across the top ( Residential Care Homes, Assisted Living Independent living with home care , Nursing Home). We will feature one variable every month and write a description of it. Then we will ask for blog comments. We will take a few comments to share the following month when we feature a new variable and offer follow up on last month’s variable.
After we go down the list on the left we will describe each care setting going across the top. We put these across the top in the order of highest quality of care, most continuity of care, and best value.
We decided to do it this way so that we can focus on the variables which are what we feel are needed to get the highest quality care and for seniors to feel their best. We also note that in all cases you need to know, meet, and interact with the people who will be doing the work, providing the assistance, on a day to day basis to get an accurate feel for what you are getting. Just talking to a sales person or reading an add are often times misleading as to what you are getting. The variability in care settings and staff is just too great for anyone to choose without meeting the actual team of the people who will provide the direct care day in and day out.
One example of how the senior care setting titles can be misleading would be the phrase “Assisted Living”. Many people may think you get assistance when you are in an Assisted Living Facility. However, that is misleading since you do not get Assistance or Assistance with medications when you are in Assisted Living unless you pay extra for those services. Instead, Assisted Living is more accurately described as independent living with no assistance. They do provide 3 meals a day but the Assistance is extra. Second, the amount of Assistance they provide is minimal assistance if and when you need it and pay extra for it. For example an Assisted Living Facility with 100 beds might have 50 beds or people who are classified as Independent Living – not getting assistance and 50 residents who need assistance. One should ask how many caregivers are there providing that extra paid assistance for up to 50 people? Indeed, it is usually 3-4 caregivers for 50 people on days and as little as 1-2 at night. Now factor in that the 50 residents needing assistance have rooms that are spread out over a large multi acre lot and building and you can see that 1-2 caregivers especially at night might be providing just minimal assistance if and when needed. Assisted Living – independent living has a great value to the community when you are very active and have no cognitive loss and do not need assistance and do not expect to need assistance. However, when you start to need assistance you need to be thinking of continuity of care, because it is likely you will need more and a varied types of assistance as you age. Instead of describing the confusing labels like “assisted living” we instead chose to describe the variable you want in any care setting. Later we can apply them to the specific settings. We are not going to go into greater detail now in the introduction but we do caution everyone to follow our golden rule – ask and meet the people who are providing the direct care and assistance from doctors, nurses, caregivers, administrators, owners before you spend your private pay dollars.
