Overseeing the Care of a Loved One in a Senior Residence

As a Patient Advocate, I am often retained to oversee the care of a loved one in an assisted living or nursing home. From experience, I cannot reiterate enough how important it is to have an advocate overseeing your loved one’s care.
I have a client who resides in an assisted living facility; it’s a nice building, in a nice town, with a nice staff and cost tons of money. You’d think everything there would be hunky dory. You’d think. After all, this is the best case scenario. Imagine what happens when the facility is less than stellar!
However, the reality is, no matter how much money you spend, how lovely the facility is and how well meaning the staff is, your loved one needs to have someone watching over his/her care…if you still live in the area, you can oversee their care, but if you’re a long distance caregiver, this becomes much more difficult. If you have friends or relatives in the area, enlist their help. Or, if you have to, hire someone. But somehow or another, you need to have “feet on the ground.”

Things will fall through the cracks. Hopefully they will be just small things, but small things can sometimes snowball into big things. This can be troublesome, especially when it comes to communication and coordination of care. In order to minimize anxiety, issues and problems, have a plan.

Make sure whoever is acting as your advocate visits the facility on a regular basis, at least every other week. They should meet with both your loved one and the staff. There should be weekly check-ins with the caregivers, either by phone or email. When the caregivers know the resident has family or others involved with her/his care, they will be both appreciative and attentive.

Make sure you have a file or notebook that contains any information needed if your loved one has to see a doctor or go to the ER.
This information should include contact information for you and your local advocate, the patient’s insurance information and a copy of the card, his/her medical history, current list of medications (this should be updated on a weekly basis) and any health directives. This information should be with the facility, the resident, the advocate and you.
I would also include a signed HIPPA release form, the last thing you need during a trip to the ER, is to have HIPPA used to block medical information. I am not tech savvy enough to attach the HIPPA form here, but I can send it by email if needed, just leave a comment below. Don’t navigate the healthcare or senior care system alone!