Long Term Care

Long Term Care

Nursing Home Care: What Nursing Home is Right for You or Your Loved One?

The Elder Law attorneys at Martha C. Brown, LLC will assist you in the search for a nursing home or long-term care facility. Our staff is familiar with the facilities in the St. Louis area and surrounding cities and communities. Senior living facilities offer different levels of care such as independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing and Alzheimer’s care. We can provide general information as to the care and treatment provided at a facility and its overall suitability for specific needs. We can offer the necessary guidelines and questions to ask when making a visit to a long-term care facility.

In-Home Care: What Home Care Agency is Right for You or Your Loved One?

The attorneys at Martha C. Brown & Associates, LLC will assist you in finding the right in-home care provider. The number of possible agencies to choose from can be overwhelming. We can help you find the right agency for your specific needs. Whether you or your loved one needs assistance with general housekeeping and meals or 24-hour care, we can assist you in finding the right in-home care provider.

How to Check a Nursing Home

The Health Care Financing Administration maintains a National Nursing Home Database. This database has detailed information about every Medicare and Medicaid-certified nursing home in the United States. You can search the database by zip code or state.

A part of the Official U.S. Government site for Medicare information, Nursing Home Compare, provides the following detailed information about every Medicare and Medicaid certified nursing home:

  • Information about the nursing home, including address, phone number, date of last inspection, number of beds, number of residents, percentage of occupied beds, Medicare and Medicaid participation, type of ownership, whether located within a hospital, chain ownership, resident and family councils.
  • Information about the residents in the nursing home such as percent of residents dependent in eating, bedfast, restricted joint motion, with restraints, with pressure (bed) sores, with urinary continence, with unplanned weight gain/loss, and with behavioral symptoms. You can select several nursing homes of interest to you and have a comparison chart printed according to any of these criteria. For example, you could select 10 nursing homes and print a chart showing the percentage of residents with bed sores in each home compared with the average percentage in the U.S. and the percentage in your state.
  • Information about the latest nursing home Inspection Results including date of last inspections, number of deficiencies compared with the number in the United States and in your state, description of each deficiency, severity of the problem and level of danger to the resident.

Nursing Home Compare: Part of the Official U.S. Government Site for Medicare Information, can be reached at:www.medicare.gov/NHCompare/Home.asp

Contact this St. Louis Elder Law attorney for advice on choosing the right nursing home for your loved one.