Lately, I seem to see lots of articles, blog posts and general hot air on “choosing a nursing home.”
Bad news for most of you. Very unlikely you’ll get much choice in the matter. I don’t recall ever seeing people walking through the front door of the lobby, followed by a bellcap with their bags as they “check in” to a nursing facility.
No. Here’s how it generally happens:
An elder person has some kind of serious medical issue that lands them in the hospital: a stroke, a fall that breaks a hip, a bout of pneumonia, major surgical procedure or any number of other common but very worrisome things. When the crisis is past, there remains a period of rest, recuperation and typically, rehab.
By this time, if they have family, they have all gathered round and different people have different ideas about how to care for mom or dad. And what I call the “sandbox issues” have begun. Brother Tom thinks mom should come home with him where his wife (who mother doesn’t much care for) will take care of her til she’s back on her feet. Sister Sue thinks Mom should go to rehab then an Assisted or Independent Living Facility (ALF or ILF) because she obviously can not take care of herself anymore. Baby sister Cindy thinks with a short stay at rehab Mom will be her old self again and can safely go home. They begin to argue amongst themselves and all the ancient tensions of “mom always loved you more” began to re-surface. I can assure you that none of this is helping Mom to recuperate.
In the meantime, in some back office, a hospital administrator is squawking at the discharge planner (another name for a caseworker or social worker) that she needs that bed. That beds got to be emptied. Why? Because Medicare will only pay for ‘x’ number of days following (surgery, stroke, whatever) and her x number of days are about up. It doesn’t matter that they aren’t managing her pain well or that she’s not healing as quickly as another might. The formula says x days. And ‘x’ days is going to be all she gets. (They seem to assume that no one can afford to pay for hospital care privately. And that’s true, most of us can’t, which is why we have insurance)
So, here comes the discharge planner into the wasp’s nest that Mom’s room has become with all the siblings gathered round. Discharge planner comes armed with a pile of paper including one that lists all the home health, skilled nursing/rehab (NFs) and even hospice agencies in a five county area. By giving you this incomprehensible list, she can say she has informed you of your choices. She tells you that she’s found an available bed for your mom in Acme Rehab and that discharge to Acme is scheduled for tomorrow as soon as the doctor writes the order.
Kids are non-plussed and immediately set aside their ideas (for the time being until “I-told-you-so time comes around) and begin to organize around the decisions made for them all (with little or no consultation with Mom). Discharge planner tells you about the rehabilitation professionals and equipment in the Acme Rehab and how great it is and how quickly Mom will be back on her feet. No one asks any questions, or goes to visit Acme. They start packing up Mom’s nighties and toothbrush preparing for the glorious migration to rehab tomorrow.
In the morning, after a long wait for the hospitalist to make rounds and write the discharge papers, nursing staff to do their thing, you have Mom put on a gurney and transferred by medical transport (another name for an ambulance) to Acme Rehab. In the meantime, because you think you’re leaving any minute, Mom misses bath, breakfast & medication.
When you arrive at Acme, Mom is wheeled into the facility still strapped to the gurney.
All she sees on the way in the building is the ceiling and light fixtures and the chin of the guy who hasn’t shaved for several days and the overhang of his beer gut while pushing her down a rather smelly hallway. Food smells and um, worse smells, assail their forward progress. Medicine carts, food carts, laundry carts, block the halls or rattle past. The gurney takes a sharp turn past a nurse’s station where several people in scrubs are talking on the phone, writing in charts, dialing the fax machine and basically impervious to the person flying by on the gurney.
You, in the meantime, have been ushered into the business office or admissions and are seated at a table across from a new face. There’s a stack of paper in front of them and a couple of pens. This person smiles ingratiatingly, turns the stack to face you and pushes it across toward you along with one of the pens. He or she starts flipping through the pages and ‘explaining’ at warp speed what they are. Periodically they put the pen in your hand to have you sign something. And, obedient child that you have momentarily reverted to, you acquiesce.
Meanwhile, in your head, all you’re hearing is the sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher in the cartoons “Mwah-mwah… mwah mwah, mwah mwah. Ok? “ “Sure, yeah, okay” as you sign the last page. Also running through your mind is, “Where have they taken Mom?” “Is she going to be okay?” “She didn’t eat anything this morning” “Did we get the discharge orders from the hospital?”I have to call Mom’s brother Ike and let him known she’s here” “Have we made the right decision” (when you should be asking, “Did WE make a decision at all?”
Of course, if you heard anything at all from the admissions person or saw anything that you signed, you are extremely unlikely to remember it even a few hours later. And where did you put that copy they gave you?
How do I know? Because, when family members come to me and ask me to represent them and I look over the contract they brought with them, I ask them, “do you know you agreed to ….? (pick any number of things). They give me shocked look and say “I never….?” And I hand them the contract, point to their signature and confirm that it’s theirs. No one remembers that they agreed to a whole host of things – as just a few example, they contracted to:
- waive the right to sue the facility in court.
- use arbitration instead with the nursing facility’s chosen arbitrator;
- to be “R.P.” or “Responsible Party”
- as RP you agree to pay the bill if Mom can’t (this is not legal, not under Federal Law or under Virginia Law and you can not agree to it)
Could this have been avoided?
Yes, and more importantly, it could have been avoided at several points:
1) They discharge planner doesn’t decide where your Mom goes. Your Mom does. Perhaps with your assistance. She also has the right to refuse “the first bed available” and the right to weigh many options. Handing you the list of agencies and options only technically meets the mandate caseworkers have to inform patients of all the options before them. Mom could have gone home with an order for home health and physical therapy. Or she could have gone to outpatient therapy, or she could have gone to any number of facilities.
2) You do not have to vacate a hospital room because a discharge planner says so. You have to be prepared to pay for it or arrange for payment, but before making a decision, someone should have visited the nursing/rehab center to make sure it was up to snuff. You can check out nursing facilities through Medicare’s “5 Star Rating System” first to narrow down the acceptable options. Since Medicare regulates nursing homes, they collect extremely detailed data, including staffing levels, quality measures and inspection reports – all of which you can look at online. They put it in pretty accessible form to make that easier. (see http://www.medicare.gov/nursinghomecompare)
3) Upon arrival at any facility, the emphasis should be upon getting Mom settled into her new surroundings. She is probably scared, in pain and unsure of what to expect next. All the paperwork and contracts can wait. And the contract does NOT need to be signed right now by anyone, not you, not your mom. In fact, I often tell caregivers (adult children, Powers of Attorney etc.) not to sign the contract at all. Mom can sign it and it can be signed later after someone that is in full possession of their senses has had an opportunity to look it over. You, as caregiver are stressed, tired and not clear on what’s happening. Your mother is sick, medicated and possibly suffering from mild dementia or psychosis (both can be caused on a temporary basis by long hospital stays). Neither of you is in top form to sign an important legal document that is likely to have very serious consequences.
Is there more? Oh there is much more. Stay tuned for Choosing a Nursing Home. Part Le Deux
