My 88 year old mother is in a memory care ward of an assisted care facility. Recently she had a fall, was hospitalized with a punctured lung and 10 broken ribs. She returned to her facility in hospice, which has been providing personalized attention.
The care facility, re-evaluated care provided to mom and along with an increase in overall monthly costs have increased fees by 50%. Since my mother's return to her facility we have hired 24/7 caregivers to supplement care provided by the assisted living facility. Our monthly costs have increased 300%, of which only 25% is covered under a long-term care policy.
How do I know that the facility is providing the service they are supposed to be providing, and what suggestions do you have to negotiate lower fees? The increase in monthly rates as well as the addition of 24/7 caregivers is financially devastating to our family.
Thank you for any insight you may have.
Why is this required, or being done?
Your family should not be paying this cost.
If your elder has no funds left it is time for application for Medicaid.
This will likely mean a transfer to in facility hospice or to a nursing home as most MC are private pay.
I would ask for a breakdown in the billing for exactly what you are paying for here, and why.
My friend went home on Hospice but had to pay for 24/7 caretakers. Even at the CHEAP rate of 20.00 an hour it was terribly expensive when you add it up. She had to have someone with you, but as your elder is in a MC already and on the "good meds" through hospice, I don't know why a dedicated 24/7 aid is needed here. To be honest any one of you could take her home with 24/7 care at this point with less expense.
They should just move a hospital bed into their home and take the mother back. If they're already paying for 24-hour care, why pay a care facility to do nothing?
Why keep her in a care facility if you are already paying for private, 24-hour care?
Save about $10,000 to $15,000 or more a month that's being paid to the care facility for nothing by putting a hospital bed in a room of your house and move your mother there. Why pay them if you have to hire 24-hour care for her?
What were the services they provided before? What has changed now to lead to an increase in 50%? Make them list out the exact services they are providing that have increased, and make sure the staff are actually doing those.
why did you feel the need to get additional 24/7 caregivers? Does she truly need constant monitoring?
One thing I have found that is a downside to getting additional outside caregivers in, is that then the facility staff do even less, thinking your private caregiver is doing it all! IF the facility care staff are doing nothing, then they should drop the facility care charges way lower. You should argue this out.
Typically there's a sheet you can look at that shows you the extra services they provide at those respective levels. Does it seem right to you? If so, maybe you'll have to bring a good reading book or tablet and sit a full day with your mom and see if she's getting what you're paying for. You negotiate for lower fees when you document they're not providing them.
You also hired 24/7 caregivers. What do they offer that the MC unit cannot provide?
make sense?
the facility cant try to have it both ways, dont let them
Instead of rolling the dice on another facility, we modified their condo to make it more accessible for them, and hired in-home help. My math showed that we could cover in-home help for 12 hours per day for the same cost as assisted living. A family member lives with them, ensuring that that someone is there overnight.
Since then, Mom has had a bad fall that resulted in several broken vertebrae, and Dad entered hospice. She is in a rehab facility for another two weeks, and we expect to have home health when she gets out. The hospice nurse comes out 3x per week to perform wound care for Dad, but that is the same schedule he was on with home health before he went into hospice. We are not using the shower aides from the hospice agency because their schedule is not consistent and we never knew when they were going to show up.
I don't really know if this plan is going to be sustainable, but it is as good as we can manage at this point.