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Checklist for Financial Planners

[By Staff Reporters]

The following will enable the financial planner to assist the client in choosing a nursing home.

The Checklist

1.   Review the client’s requirements. An assisted-living facility may suffice instead of a true nursing home, which is required by the frail and elderly needing daily medical care.

2.   Pick a location close to home and relatives. Frequent visits are crucial, not only to combat loneliness but also to ensure resident receives proper attention.

3.   Read inspection report (state survey). If the financial planner encounters difficulties in obtaining a current report, he or she should assume that the home has something to hide. Don’t expect perfection. Nursing homes provide a difficult service for difficult residents. If a home is unresponsive to inquiry regarding items in a report, assume a similar response to concerns about the quality of care being provided in the future.

4.   Tour the facility on an unannounced basis at different times on different days. Stroll through corridors and look and listen. Trust senses and instincts. Items to consider should include:

·         Appearance of residents’ rooms. Outward decor of facility can be misleading, so the planner should inspect the residents’ rooms. To what extent can the rooms be personalized? If rooms are shared, how are good roommate matches made?

·         Smells. High-quality homes have no lingering stench of urine or air freshener to cover up bad care and unusually high incidences of incontinence due to lack of attention by staff.

·         Safety hazards. Be especially aware of items in corridors that can be obstacles to those with unsteady gait and poor eyesight.

·         Sufficient staff members who are pleasant and respectful to residents. Are staff members responsive to residents’ needs? Are staff members warm in their interactions with all residents, even those requiring the heaviest supervision? Are aides helping residents with walking or exercise of their arms and legs?

·         Residents’ attitudes toward facility’s service. Talk with residents and staff to determine attitudes toward the facility’s service. Does the facility have a family counsel to provide it with input?

·         Grooming. A clear sign of neglect is failure to keep residents clean, well dressed, and well groomed.

·         Physical restraints. Nursing homes that have eliminated restraints also have improved quality of life and more social contact among residents. Ties, belts, vests, and high bed rails are an easy but unsatisfactory solution to managing residents. Count number of residents that are restrained; ask what percentage are restrained and why.

·         Food. Visit at meal time and sample the food to make sure it is palatable. The setting for meals should be attractive and pleasant, and food should be served at the proper temperature. Staff should be available to help residents who are not able to feed themselves. Review menus and determine the amount of concern for nutrition.

·         Activities. A wide variety of activities should be provided, and the participation level should be high. Bored residents in front of a television may be a sign of a home’s failure to stimulate its residents.

·         Dignity. Residents should be handled in ways that respect their dignity. For example, are residents properly clothed in public?

·         Bed sores. Bed sores are a sign of poor care. Review inspection reports and see if they are mentioned, or talk to residents or their families about this topic.

·         Special care units. Such units are often used as an expensive marketing device. The special care units may not be designed well and may indicate a lack of outdoor facilities.

5.   Review the facility’s policy on medical care. Will residents be seen by their personal doctors or by staff physicians? Does the home have good infection control and immunization plans? What sort of access to dentists and eye doctors is there?

6.   Perform financial analysis. The planner should gain a complete understanding of what the client’s and/or his or her family’s financial commitments are and how they will be met.

·         Determine the financial strength of the nursing home, particularly if client funds are to be advanced.

·         Consider a single lifetime payment in lieu of monthly rental payments.

·         Consider exclusions in contract. For example, nursing home insurance coverage should include loss of personal property and personal injury.

·         Determine what services the client will require, what is covered under the facility’s general fee, and what services are provided for an extra fee. Determine what the extra fee will be for each additional service that will be required. Family members should not agree to pay these charges because this could delay Medicaid funding.

·         Analyze pricing structure in general and what the pattern of increases in fees has been.

·         Determine residents’ rights in eviction proceedings for nonpayment of rent, in returning to nursing home after hospital stay, and in having Medicaid make payments on behalf of resident.

·         Determine residents’ rights to appeal decisions and what the appeal procedures are.

7.   Obtain and check references, including families of current residents, local hospitals, doctors, and government agencies, particularly the ombudsman at state departments for aging.

Assessment

What have we missed?

Conclusion

In any case, early planning is the key to supporting both your kids’ futures and your retirement. Making logical college funding decisions, rather than emotional ones, creates a win/win for everyone.

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