Comparing Long Term Care Facilities
Medicaid subsidized long term care facilities, like most nursing homes, are gradually losing their staff because of the government’s ceaseless funding cutback. This is indicative of poor long term care (LTC) services so while you are young and healthy think of ways to spare yourself from falling into such fate.
Apart from discouraging you from depending on Medicaid, articles such as this aim to discuss the wide array of LTC facilities that abound the country. It is just a matter of choosing the right one that is capable of addressing your personal LTC needs.
Many people think that when their health condition gets worse their next destination after in-home care would be a nursing home. This is precisely why many Americans refuse to think of or acknowledge LTC. As a matter of fact, 90% of them over the age of 55 prefer to receive care at home.
Unfortunately, in-home care is specifically designed for individuals who only require assistance with their activities of daily living (ADL) such as eating, bathing, use of toilet, dressing, continence, and transferring.
When one has a serious medical condition, he is not advised to remain at home anymore unless his abode has been modified and it conforms to the definition of aging-in-place. Meaning to say, it has to be equipped with the necessary device for communication, monitoring, and security.
Unless your home fits that description, you will have to enter an LTC facility in the event that your home health aide can no longer manage your health condition.
Types of Long Term Care Facilities
- Nursing Homes – These LTC facilities provide 24-hour care and monitoring especially to patients who are chronically ill, disabled or injured. Perhaps it’s the stigma that is attached to every nursing home that is scaring people away from it. In reality this should not be the case since many nursing homes nowadays have evolved with the times and can actually be the perfect alternative to hospitals.
- Assisted Living Facilities – These are specially designed for senior folks who need assistance with their ADLs and medication management but are not seriously ill. Elderly people who have gone through treatments in a nursing home would usually come to this type of LTC facility. There are also those who simply got tired of hiring a home health aide and thus left their homes for an assisted living center.
- Continuing-Care Retirement Communities – This is a multilevel care facility with apartments and condo units wherein senior citizens can live independently. Apart from meals and transportation to and from their doctor appointments, the elderly folks here can also engage in a variety of recreational activities.
- Hospice Care – Provided to individuals who are terminally ill and this kind of service is usually performed at home. However, there are nursing homes that work directly with hospice organizations in delivering palliative care to their patients who require it.
- Home for the Aged – Provides room and board for senior individuals who need minor assistance with their ADLs. This type of LTC facility does not accept individuals who are chronically ill or experiencing mental deterioration.
The list of long term care facilities goes on but before you can pick which is right for you there’s a need to identify your LTC needs first to avoid entering a facility which does not specialize in your LTC requirements.
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