Post by glassofsyrah on Jul 11, 2013 13:19:54 GMT -5
It's time for my Great Aunt Enid to go into an assisted living facility. Has anyone gone through this process with relatives/parents? I am not quite sure how to even begin the process of finding a home for her. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Oh my. That's a big task. I've never done it but I would probably begin by touring the facility, meeting with the director and asking lots of questions. Almost like searching for a DCP.
I have done this for my Mom. It's overwhelming. First, you need to determine her budget. I am in MA and they range from about $4,000/month and up.
Then you need to determine her needs, location, etc. Once you have figured that out, someone needs to tour multiple places and then determine the best fit from there.
This is where I am now. I know her budget and I know that she will need memory care in addition to basic assisted living.
What Karma said about the Agency on Aging. Typically it's an arm of DSHS. My grandmother and father both had to go into assisted living facilities. We got a list of the facilities in our area that would take their insurance and meet their needs. (Both had Alzheimer's. Grandmother was early stages when she first moved in so she had an apartment and standard living facilities, capable of living on her own with light supervision. As she progressed she was moved to another facility that had full-needs care. My father's wife took care of him until it was too much and he was placed in a facility that provided full-needs care from the outset.)
We toured the facilities spoke with the director about the care they could provide, checked ratings online (I'll have to see if I can find the sites that did the nursing home ratings as well as the person I spoke with and his agency - his was a private agency that provided services in a number of states. My dad died a year ago so none of this information is at my fingertips anymore. I do remember his name was Tony though. Fat lot of help that is. My dad was in Central California so he'd cover the same/similar territory.)
You'll also need to know what she has in assets, her insurance coverage, whether she has LTC coverage or Medicaid only, etc.
I'm sorry you have to deal with this. It's always a sad moment when someone reaches this stage in life.