If so, listen up. A Place For Mom will help you find a place for your loved one. I have used them. There is no charge, because THE FACILITY YOU CHOOSE TAKES A COMMISSION. They do not give you an opinion on the proposed facilities they offer. They factor in your geographic area, the size place you want, and other information you give them about your search. They do NOT tell you about any violations the facilities have been cited for. This is crucial information you MUST find for yourself. Recently, the AJC, our newspaper in Atlanta, did a year long investigation into all the facilities in Georgia as well as the DCH, the organization responsible for reporting violations. You can now Google “AJC-Unprotected” to find all the articles that were written. They even created a new data base with a listing of all the facilities and their violations so you can find out the true story on them. The president of the DCH, “Department of Community Health”, just enacted a rule that requires all the facilities to put their violations for the last 18 months on their own websites. This is huge! Hopefully other states will follow suit. DIG DEEP. You don’t know what really goes on unless you live in one of these places. One more piece of advice. Put a camera in the room of your loved one. You wouldn’t believe what I have caught. Please don’t just rely on a list from A Place For Mom or similar companies. They are in it for the commission.
Yes, we are still not happy. Here is the current state of affairs. The food is akin to what you would be served in a high school cafeteria. If you push your pendant for help, it could be as long as 40 minutes to an hour or never before someone comes to check on you. The trash doesn’t get emptied on a regular basis. The bed is never made. The room gets a lousy cleaning. During the holidays, it wasn’t cleaned for 3 weeks. The activities are printed, but the director sometimes doesn’t show up or they are cancelled. Most of the activities don’t cost any money (to the facility), so they get pretty boring. Many of the caregivers have a sour attitude. There have been fires and floods. We almost never have a fire drill. The elevators routinely malfunction and are not inspected as called for by law. (The facility was just fined $250 for that after a few residents reported to the state). There is currently a lawsuit pending over a resident in memory care who was allowed to be bitten all over her body by ants. She subsequently died. Would you like for your loved one to live in a place like this? It’s beautiful and considered the Creme de la Creme in the city. Who would have known? The problem is, you don’t know if you are moving from the frying pan into the fire until it’s too late. The facilities are not going to tell you about these problems. And most of the residents can’t remember what they had for lunch five minutes ago. Moving is stressful, exhausting, and expensive. Who wants to keep hopping around and paying that $1000-$2000 or more non refundable “community fee?” Please read the articles written by our local newspaper. Just Google AJC Unprotected. It’s time for all of us to contact our state legislators and demand better care for our seniors.
That is a scary state of affairs, imo.
I have family living in an AL facility.
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I live with my husband ( who has dementia ) because I have seen and heard too much. I do not have any cognitive decline, so I see and hear everything that goes on. I will never leave him by himself. I know this is not an option for many, but please, do your homework. Check the DCH website for violations, get a camera for the room, talk to the residents who still have their minds. Don’t be swayed by the beautiful architecture, the landscaping, and the total BS you will get on your tour. I am living this! I know what goes on. And as the AJC articles say, the problems are system wide. They talked to residents, families, employees, legislators, management of the facilities, and the DCH for over a year. Their report is shocking. We owe our elderly more than what the current corrupt system is providing.
Just so the site is really about people who come here with no strings attached!!!!!
They get your information, call to find out how much money you have, if it is not enough they try to guilt you into pulling from your own retirement account to make up the difference for your loved one, using horrid tactics. Then when you tell them no ,they send out your private information to all the facilities they have agreements with and you get to tell all of them to leave you alone.
They also sell all of our information from this forum, they use our posts or their version of our posts for articles and use our screen names to give us credit for what was said, whether we actually said it or not.
Before anyone goes off on me read the current terms and conditions and privacy policies. We all agree by being here.
We are making them money.
Are you living in an assisted living facility? And was it recommended by A Place for Mom?
Their advisors probably haven’t even expected the facilities they are recommending either.
As to the forum. All internet and web sites and pages are able to stay up and do the work they do (in this case providing a forum to us to question and get answers, sometimes just to vent when we need it) by getting advertisers on their site. In the case of the forum the ads are on the right and it is absolutely clear that they are ads and you have a personal choice to use or not use any services, and more to explore any services.
There is much you cannot know if you don't ask. And you are correct that in this as in anything else there is much you learn later when you are THERE. That is as normal as anything, say, buying a house, when you find leaks and cracks everywhere that first year.
Good luck. It is unfortunately a Military Industrial Complex now, and even our schools are run by consultants and money makers. American still has that "Frontier mentality" in which you just have to follow the money.
And to answer your question, yes, AgingCare is owned by APFM.