What should you know before you move into an independent living senior community? To find out, I asked a long-time resident. But not just any resident. Len Bachman has been living in an upscale 313-unit independent senior community in Chevy Chase, Maryland for about a decade. In some ways, he’s very typical of his neighbors. Now an active 89, he moved in [...]
This week, the PBS program Frontline investigated care at the nation’s largest assisted living company—Emeritus Corp. The program’s message was powerful—and highly controversial: Residents of some Emeritus facilities are dying as a result of poor care by insufficient and poorly trained staff and a lack of government regulation. I can’t speak to what’s happening at Emeritus, a for-profit company that has [...]
What do consumers want to know about assisted living facilities? I was recently asked to participate in a project aimed at answering that question. So, I asked some residents of facilities and their families, as well as people who are considering whether to move in. I thought their questions were interesting, so, I’ll share them and try to provide a [...]
Too often, we stash our elders away in institutional residential care facilities. And, sadly, even many active seniors choose to separate themselves from the broader world, opting for what they see as the safety and security of gated communities. This week, I spent a couple of days in Rochester, N.Y., where the St John’s Living Community has developed two [...]
Assisted living and other residential care facilities are looking more and more like nursing homes. About one in four provide skilled nursing services, between half and two-thirds offer case management, and-- at least among larger facilities---two-thirds offer their residents physical or occupational therapy. More than one-third of residents will make an emergency visit to the hospital and more than one [...]
The Metlife Mature Market Institute has released its annual survey of the cost of long-term care services, including nursing homes, assisted living facilities, adult day programs, and home care. And the news is not good. On average, provider costs rose far faster than the rate of inflation. The only exceptions were home care services, where costs were unchanged from 2010 [...]
My dad, who had congestive heart failure, lived on the second floor of a garden apartment building that had no elevator. As the disease made him weaker, he could no long walk down the stairs. And for the last year of his life, he was trapped in his own apartment. An "outing" was a slow walk, and eventually, a wheelchair ride about 100 feet to the [...]
Money Follows the Person is a cornerstone of the federal government's effort to move Medicaid beneficiaries from nursing homes into the community. But a new study commissioned by Medicaid itself shows how difficult those transitions can be. In the 30 states that have been testing the program over the past three years, only 8,500 people have used MFP to return to their communities. That's [...]
Prepare yourself for big new cuts in government support for elder care. In his State of the Union address last evening, President Obama called for a five-year freeze on a narrow slice of the federal budget. Unfortunately, programs subject to the freeze would include many that are critically important to the frail elderly and younger people with disabilities--especially those living in [...]
It is an article of faith among many in the elder and disability advocacy communities that aging in place is always the best alternative for someone who needs personal care. I don't believe it, and I recently heard an important panel discussion that confirmed that view. The panel, sponsored by Washington Grantmakers, was especially interesting because the participants were all supporters of [...]