Start preparing for discharge the day your loved one enters a care facility. Most people unfamiliar with the healthcare system are under the misconception that hospital discharge occurs when your loved one is back to normal or when the family is ready. The reality is that discharge from an acute care hospital occurs when the acute medical crisis is stabilized, can be handled … [Read more...]
Medicare, Private Insurance, Long Term Care Insurance, Private Pay – Who Pays for Which Care Facility and For How Long?
If you think the alphabet soup of care facilities is confusing, let’s talk about payment. Note: Healthcare payments are constantly changing. This article summarizes the status as of September 2018, is geared toward those over 75 and deals with primarily with Medicare. This is not a comprehensive analysis / reporting of private insurance regulation. (Jump to Acute Care … [Read more...]
Acute Care (Hospital), Inpatient Acute Rehabilitation (IRF), Sub-Acute, SNF, LTC, LTAC – The Alphabet Soup of Care Facilities.
What is the difference between all these care facilities? When you are ill, or recovering from being ill, chances are you will spend time in what healthcare terms “A Care Facility”. The highest level of care is found in an Acute Care Hospital. If your health issues are resolved, you are discharged to home with no additional care needed. If you do need additional care, the … [Read more...]
Deaf and Aging in America
“Blindness cuts us off from things. Deafness cuts us off from other people.” Helen Keller Our very sense of self-worth, our identity, is dependent on relationships, and healthy relationships are dependent on being free to share our thoughts and feelings, as well as to listen to those of others. Barriers to communication, therefore, create barriers to relationship. For people … [Read more...]
Caregiving Tips: When Your Elder Is Hard-Of-Hearing
And won’t wear hearing aids “For those of us who are gradually losing our hearing, it is often too much effort to keep up with a conversation, so we self-isolate. I find that most people mumble, speak too rapidly and use words without consonants. If people spoke with clarity, they would not feel like they had to shout – which makes what they are shouting distracting and even … [Read more...]