Long Term Care: A Case Study

As we become older, issues with our health begin to take affect and finding ways to fund for that care is becoming even more difficult. In the article “Some Elders Must Take Drastic Measures to Obtain Long-term Care”, national magazine journalist Mary A. Fischer (2011) states that many Americans must face demeaning and disempowering choices in order to qualify for Medicaid or Medicare—federal funded health insurance programs— such as refusing to pay for a spouses institutionalization, divorce, and spending down assets. The author argues that these choices leave the healthy spouse with decreased funds to plan for their own retirement expense (Fisher, 2011). Working in the health care field for 4 years, along with my family’s own personal experiences I can relate to this article, since I have seen a variety of ways that federal funded health insurances have been unable to meet the expectations and demands of its beneficiaries.

The challenges and impact of Baby Boomers on long-term care systems are going to modify the manner in which traditional health care, patient access, financial payments and treatment are delivered. Baby Boomers will have an extensive amount of care maintenance needs involving various rehabilitation conditions, acute and chronic illnesses, which will require a significant amount of thoroughly trained gerontologists, skilled nurses, nurse practitioners, social workers, community advocates, and family involvement. This article explores options sought to reduce the costs to society and Baby Boomers as innovative savings, tax credit options, and other alternative long-term care financing choices lessening the impact on the long-term care system.

Our elderly population is living longer than ever before and not all of them are entering into a nursing home. They are choosing to stay in their own home or their caregiver is choosing it for them. Some caregivers are choosing to move their ageing love one in the home with them. Whatever the case may be, there is an increased need for some type of home health as it applies to the elderly population. “Medicare will pay the full cost of professional help only if the physician

The main concern about long-term care is providing the money to pay for individuals and care providers. “As a result, policymakers are considering several proposals for substantial reform. These fall under three categories: Shifting the focus of Medicaid long-term benefits to home care, expanding the long-term care and geriatric workforce, and restructuring the means of finance” (Gleckman, 2009). Federal and state have agreed that many individuals should think about long-term care insurance. In fact, federal and state have discussed providing tax credits and deductions for buying long-term care insurance.

Humanity is living longer these days creating the need for long-term care facilities. Today’s families need to work outside the home forcing their loved ones to enter the dependency of the extended care and long-term care facilities. More and more of the retirees are seeking better facilities for themselves because there are more options. There are more than meets the eyes in the nursing and long-term care that involves families and personnel in the decision making for their loved ones.

Nobody wants to enter a nursing home, but there are situations where this cannot be avoided. The cost of a nursing home runs in the tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars each year. Often, individuals state they will pay for their care until their savings runs out and then allow Medicaid to take over. What they fail to realize if they won't qualify for Medicaid if they own a home or other assets. Long-term care insurance will be needed to pay for the care or they will be forced to sell their home and other assets. With the help of a Medicaid Planning Attorney in Southington CT, individuals learn how they can protect or distribute their assets before it gets to this stage.

Always Best Care Senior Services is a senior care that has the program for Alzheimer’s diseases. This office mainly covers most of the south bay area including Torrance, Palos Verdes, Lomita, Harbor City, Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach, San Pedro, Lawndale, and Hawthorne. The address is 21250 Hawthorne Boulevard, Suite 500, Torrance, CA 90503, and it opens 24 hours. Also, walk-in is welcomed for this senior care organization. It has the services of family support, memory care, in-home care and assisted living finder. For Alzheimer’s disease, there is a specific team called MCT, The Memory Care Team, that provide training to caregivers about how to communicate with patients with memory loss, and how to manage and improve difficult behaviors. Also,

Long-term care organizations provide twenty-four hour around the clock care to seniors that are unable to function independently (“Government of Canada,” 2016). One of the strengths of providing LTC within the community is that they are responsive to seniors changes in health across various life stages (Bravo, Wals, Dubois, Charpentier, 1999). Health care professionals can contribute towards enhancing the quality of care by continuously following up with the residents as well as, collaborating with other health professionals that are involved in administering care to the resident such as nurses, social workers, physicians and anyone else involved in delivering their care (Chaplin, 2017). However, monitoring residents health and service delivery

Following this, the health care system has been attempting to adjust to the decreased funding which has attributed to the rise in health inequalities and challenges with accessing quality care (Hick, 2014). Furthermore, these reductions in the financing have emerged in many long-term care (LTC) facilities that have cut their expenses by employing lower educated staff and decreasing their staffing levels (Walter, Wodchis, Anderson, Anderson, 2007). As a result, research on the cost of implementing good quality care in long-term care facilities revealed that by having well-trained staff, they could save money by preventing risks to seniors health (Walter et al., 2007). For example, skin ulcers, use of physical restraints, incontinence and levels

Patient is a 88 year old Hispanic female who lives alone in her home. Patient stated she was born in Arizona and moved to Phoneix shortly after, where she lived most of her life. Patient's mother passed away when she was 12 years old. Patinet's father passed away when she was 15 years old. Pt has worked as a housewife and varies types of jobs for about 25 years. Patient was married to her husband for 40 years till he passed away. Patient moved in with one of her older brothers till he passed away from a alochol related illness. Pt's brother, Rudy, stated she is independent with her personal needs, meals and housecleaning. Rudy said he and his wife check up on the patient everyday and assist her if needed. Rudy made it clear that the patient

The word “fall” does not usually strike fear into the hearts of most people, but it should. Falls are all too common in the geriatric population, and they have devastating consequences. American Geriatric Society. (2016) falls are the leading cause of injury and death in adults 65 years and over. A person who falls may sustain severe injuries such as hip fracture, or head trauma. Falls have cost the US health system more than $19 billion and is predicted to increase to $54.9 billion by 2020. Falls are prevalent among elderly patients living in a Long Term Care Facility. According to Lee, A., Lee, K.-W., & Khang, P. (2013), argues that falls are the common and devastating problem among elderly clients causing a tremendous amount of morbidity,

ASC team to arrange a discharge to enable the hospital to free up beds to provide to other inpatients in need.

I enjoyed reading your discussion post about how patient-centered care is present in the long-term care. I believe that all nurses should be taking the time to find out how the patient prefers to take their medication and what the patient likes to take it with, whether it is with ginger ale, water or something else. I believe that the little things that the nurse can do for the patient can make all the difference to the patient. No matter where the nurse is working there can always be difficult patients to work with like the patient that you gave as your example. We see patients like this in the emergency room, it is vital for the nurse to remember that we are seeing this patient in what the patient considers an emergency. Sometimes allow them

We have all discussed that insufficient or improper documentation can potentially lead to poor quality of care and costly litigation for long term care (LTC) facilities, but how does a LTC facility manage these issues? One of the major clinical areas of liability involves risk management. Risk management involves policies and procedures to “reduce preventable injuries and accidents and to minimize the financial severity of any claims” (Weinberg & Levine, 2008). Valuable risk management requires personnel to understand the areas that are subject to litigation and how to prevent or correct instances in these areas. Staff in LTC facilities must take a proactive and preventative approach to risk management rather than reactive response once the

The plan of care I would use for Susan is strength based strategies. I believe that this technique would embrace her strengths in respect to the reoccurring traumatic events in her life and it would be a starting point for positive change. I would not want to draw attention to her “problems” or “what is wrong” because she may get defensive or may not be ready to face her problems. I do not want to come off as an expert ready to fix or address the issues and not allow the client to participate in the process. I would not ignore the problems but allow Susan to identify her own problems and create solutions. I find this approach helpful because as a counselor we tend to take control of therapy to formulate goals and feel inadequate when the clients