Medicaid planning is important to make sure that Medicaid can pay for the costs of your nursing home care if you need to go into a nursing home. According to the Wall Street Journal, anyone who has reached aged 65 has around a 70 percent chance of having to spend time in a nursing home sometime during the course of the rest of their life. Medicare and private insurance don’t usually pay for nursing home care unless you need skilled nursing care, so you will have to either get Medicaid to pay for you or have to pay out of pocket, unless you buy costly long-term care insurance. 
Since Medicaid is means-tested, working with a Medicaid planning lawyer at Mark S. Eghrari & Associates, PLLC can help you to ensure you are able to get covered without having to impoverish yourself first. You should work with an attorney and take this step while you are still young and healthy so you don’t have to worry about settling for a low quality nursing home because of financial concerns. You should also work with an experienced attorney to make an advanced plan for where you will get care so you can ensure you select a nursing home that will provide you with a good quality of life. Far too many nursing homes provide substandard care, putting patient’s health and happiness in jeopardy. There are steps you can take to make sure the nursing home you select actually provides a good quality of life and these tips will help.
Tips for Choosing a Nursing Home That Provides High Quality Care
When you are selecting a nursing home, there are a few key tips that you should keep in mind to make sure the facility you select is one that cares about patients and that will provide you with care that you can count on. Some of the tips to follow include the following:
- Make use of Nursing Home Compare: This is a service offered by Medicare which helps you to search facilities that are licensed by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. You can search by geographic area or search a specific nursing home and find details about the facility, reviews and ratings, and information about past problems.
- Understand the level of care the facility provides: Different types of nursing homes cater to different clients. There are some care facilities that have different services for people in different stages in their lives. For example, you could select a nursing home that offers independent living while you’re still relatively healthy and then allows you to move over to a nursing home unit when you get older or sicker. You could also find a care facility that specializes in memory care or stroke care if you have specialized health issues.
- Review ratings from local residents: You can make use of other services online to review ratings left by local residents and to find out about the opinion of people who have lived in the care facility.
- Visit the nursing home regularly: If you have narrowed down a list of care facilities that you believe may be a good fit for you or for a relative, you should visit the care facility at different types in order to see how people actually live there. Pay attention to whether the nursing home and residents seem clean and tidy. Look for schedules and lists of activities and see if activities are well-attended when they are offered. Visit at meal time in order to try the food that is being prepared and to see how residents and staff members interact. The more frequently you visit, the better you will understand what the home actually has to offer residents.
Mark S. Eghrari & Associates, PLLC can help you to determine what facilities accept Medicaid payments and can help you to research the record of facilities that you are considering as part of the creation of a comprehensive nursing home plan.
Getting Help from Medicaid Planning Attorneys
When you find a high quality nursing home, you want to ensure that you have the money to pay for the care you require without having to spend your life savings. Mark S. Eghrari & Associates, PLLC will help you with the creation of a Medicaid plan so you can afford to get care. To find out more about how our firm can help with the Medicaid planning process, join us for a free seminar. You can also give us a call at (631) 265-0599 or contact us online at any time for help.
Mark S. Eghrari, Estate Planning Attorney
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