Realities in Assisted Living Centers

Assist the Living

It aims to improve the quality of their patients’ lives. This is a place where people with disabilities get the best possible care as they recuperate. This is where they continue living as normal people until they are completely healed.

They call this place, Assisted Living Centers (ALCs). There are so many assisted living centers in the country. These facilities provide patients with health care services, while monitoring their daily activities. These centers are out to ensure safety and well-being to their patients.

ALCs understand that the best way to deal with sickness is to provide a home atmosphere. Their patients, who have disabilities in themselves, would recover fast with them. They provide personal care with a feel of home, assisting them even as they mend their illnesses. Assisted living centers started its boom in the 90s. It’s an offshoot of the eldercare institutions that provide medical attention to the old. But with a difference. ALCs do not function like that of a retirement home.

Other assisted living centers do look like homes in themselves, not just the atmosphere. At times these living centers tend to feel like an apartment to these patients. It was born out of the idea that personal care and providing home-like services are perfect medical amenities in themselves.

Patients can also choose his or her own doctor in an ALC. Unlike in other facilities where patients have limited access, but with assisted living centers, they have the freedom to choose.

ALCs generally cater to those patients with disabilities. This is the reason why others have built larger bathrooms, kitchens with wheelchairs in it, rooms are wider, and hallways even have support railing.

Most assisted living centers conduct their businesses with providing constant medical upkeep as their main goal. And they align their services with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA).

Myths with Assisted Living Centers

When you are about to choose a senior care option for your loved one, you perceive ideas about the assisted living centers. Your perceptions and ideas are brought by the media who highlighted the negative accounts about these facilities. A single bad story about a living center will surely affect everything. The media tends to focus on the bad side of things. Not everything you heard on the news are true for all. There are good senior care facilities that have quality care services.

To help you decide, let’s talk about the common myths you’ve heard about assisted living centers. First myth: Assisted living centers won’t accept patients with urinary incontinence and those who are in a wheelchair.

It is true that patients must be able to move on their own, but wheelchairs are not prohibited, as long as they are able to transfer from the bed to the wheelchair or vice versa with the help of another person. Patients who needs two people to move or can no longer bear weight are not accepted. This is because the assisted living centers are not licensed to provide such services.

Patients who experience urinary incontinence are typically accepted as long as their situation can be supervised with toilet scheduling, using incontinence products and reminders on a constant basis. If bowel incontinence turns out to be an issue and cannot be handled properly, this may require an alternative care setting as the circumstance may affect other patients.

Another myth is that Medicare will take care of all expenses in the assisted living centers. Medicare does not cover non-skilled care services like assistance with activities of daily living, specifically bathing, medication management, dressing, toileting and transportation. The Medicare cover skilled nursing services, however in most cases, the assisted living centers prefers private pay (cash) or long term insurances.

Assisted Living Centers Reform Bill

AB 1554 would force Community Care Licensing to begin investigation of problems including abuse, neglect, or serious harm to assisted living centers residents within 24 hours and to complete this most important investigation within 30 days. Assembly member Nancy Skinner’s regulation to change the state’s defective program used to examine problems of neglect and abuse within California’s 7,500 mature care homes was approved this week by the Set up Human Services Panel on a single, bipartisan elect.

Responding to the scandal at Valley Springs Manor in Castro Valley, where 19 senior citizens were abandoned by the home care owner and reports stating problems in management and administration regarding California’s residential care features for the seniors, Skinner introduced AB 1554 to enhance the investigation and complaint procedure. The bill is part of a package of changes subsidized by the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform. “No longer will problems of abuse and neglect be taken under the rug. The terrible occurrence at the Castro Valley care service was avoidable,” Skinner, of Berkeley, said. “We know now that more powerful measures are needed to ensure the safety of our most vulnerable.”

Media reviews have exposed problems in the Community Care Licensing (CCL) issue investigation program exposing a design of superficial investigation, poor interaction with complainants and weak administration. At the hearing, Eric Boice, of Colfax, recounted how the issue and investigation procedure failed his mom, a former primary school instructor clinically identified as having Alzheimer’s. Boice said his mom passed away in 2009 as a result of the abuse and neglect she received while at an assisted living service in Auburn, California. “The investigation procedure was a joke,” Boice said. “We had proof and content information supporting our claims of abuse, yet the state organization did not demand any more information nor did they get in touch with our lawyer. My family’s experience is a sad commentary on our region’s capability to secure residents in assisted living centers.”

Age Friendly Assisted Living Centers

The middle-agers are coming of age, which means a large section of the population is now approaching or in retirement. An older demographic means a different atmosphere for many cities and most of all, different needs. Housing, transport options and community service needs are not the same for senior citizens as they are for, say, families or middle-age professionals. Making sure cities are able to properly provide senior citizens is important. With the population bubble of middle-agers attaining retirement age, the number of 65 and older is expected to grow; all the while, growth in the under-24 age bracket is reducing.

Economist Charles Colgan talked recently in Wells, observing that the quickest growing section of the population usually is the 65 years and older. Maine is not alone in dealing with an aging inhabitants, of course, and to that end, the AARP and World Health Organization have been working to make the Global Network of Age Friendly Communities. Regionally, Saco is positioned to become the area’s first such group. The town started this process with an evaluation of its present condition and what could be done to make the town more “age friendly.” Topics up for conversation included community contribution, health employment, interaction, outdoor areas, transport and real estate, among others. By gathering to evaluate the present condition of the town in regards to elderly people, the town is taking a practical advancement in being an eye-catching place for individuals to come and stop working and perhaps even more important, for long-time residents to age in place.

Simple developments like including more bus runs to and from food markets and medical care facilities, street developments and wheelchair-accessible community areas can make a big difference in enhancing individuals’ total well being. Bigger changes like cost-effective senior housing and cost-effective assisted living centers can also allow senior citizens to remain in their communities even after they can no longer care for a single-family home. Making these accommodations, especially in assisted living centers, not only makes the community more pleasant to them, but also to their loved ones. Improvements such as those community areas and transport also benefit the entire community.

Assisted living centers are places where people, who are less than independent but not in need of full time care, are provided with guidance or support in the activities of daily life. It is a proper care option typically employed by the elderly who do not require the 24-hour health care typical of an elderly care facility. It gives seniors help in housing, support services and health care, on a needed basis. The setting is similar to a person’s own home; however, assistance is provided in the form of meals, housekeeping, entertainment and other lifestyle support. The senior gets the security of having assistance when needed and residing in a structured environment, while maintaining an overall stage of independence. Options include staying in a separate apartment or condominium type residing quarters, or if more assistance is required, staying in a dormitory. The stage of interaction with staff varies, depending on the stage of need.

One of the major drawbacks for those seeking assisted living is the cost. The median monthly cost for assisted living is $2,575. While this may be comparable to assisted living centers prices, covering the expenses is much more difficult. Medicare A and B, the traditional sources of funding for a senior’s care, do not offer comprehensive protection for long term, ongoing care in an assisted living center. Medicare A, which pays for hospital coverage for seniors, may provide partial coverage for care in an assisted living center for rehabilitation following hospitalization, but will only last up to 100 days. Coverage will decrease throughout the 100 days. Medicare B, which covers physician care, will not provide any coverage for assisted living expenses separate from treatment by a doctor. Private insurance is the most effective way to pay for assisted living care.

Medicaid, a state and federal program which provides health care for low income individuals, may cover some assisted living expenses. However, the availability of State Medicaid programs coverage will vary by state, and likely will be decreasing coverage rather than expanding in the coming years. In contrast, traditional assisted living centers are covered by Insurance coverage if the senior stays in Insurance covered certified house after a qualified hospital stay (at least three days).