My 93-year old mother has dementia and has been in the memory care unit of a for-profit assisted living facility for two years. We have run out of money and I need to move her out. The ALF has not been very helpful, although back when I first visited the sales person assured me they would help me find another place for her if we had to move her.
Last November I spoke with the head of the memory care unit and explained that we were running low on funds and he also said they would help me to find a place for my mother and reminded me that I needed to give them 30 days notice. Well, I gave notice at the end of April and the ALF has been almost useless, telling me to "keep them informed." They gave my contact information to a man who supposedly works with people to get their relatives into facilities, but he only works with for-profit facilities.
He was kind enough to refer me to a woman who suggested a few places I didn't know about. I didn't know about a lot of things: the Patient Referral Instrument and Screen and that there were facilities that accepted patients "Medicaid pending," It seems as though skilled nursing facilities are reluctant to accept a patient that is still mobile. I feel lost and panicked. The month is halfway over and the ALF already asked me about a moving out date. I told them if I could not move my mother this month I would get the money for June, though right now I have no idea where I would get it.
I'm an only child and because I took out the personal loan in November I will have to push my retirement back two more years in order to pay the loan off. My internist gave me contact information for an elder care consultant, a LMSW. I reached out to her and am waiting to hear back. Would appreciate any advice from those of you who have been in similar situations.
As an aside, I don't think whether your mom lives in a for-profit or non-profit facility will have much, if any, bearing on the cost or quality of care and either type chooses whether to accept Medicaid's payment limits. It's an unfortunate fact that many or most states classify "memory care" (MC) as "assisted living" rather than as "skilled nursing," and thus their Medicaid payments for MC are so low that facilities cannot cover their costs of providing care. As a consequence, both for-profit and non-profit facilities are forced either to not accept Medicaid or to limit the number of Medicaid-qualified residents in their care whose care costs are partially subsidized by non-Medicaid residents. For example, after investigating several for-profit MC facilities that accept Medicaid (some with limits on number of Medicaid residents or that required private pay for 2 years prior to accepting Medicaid), I moved my dad into a church-affiliated, non-profit memory care facility that does not accept Medicaid.