No matter which you focus on get a lawyer to read the contract and you understand it.
We have a community run by the Quakers. It started out as a NH, added AL and independent living. They had that buy in thing. GFs Aunt was in a IL apartment. My GFs mother was her POA and handled the finances. Aunt had a stroke and was transferred to the NH section. When she bought in she was told that 90% or 90k (can't remember how it went) would go towards her stay in the NH if ever needed. They tried to bill GFs mother for her Aunts care in the NH. My GFs mother said they were wrong and said she would get her lawyer involved.
I think the Quakers bit off more than they could chew. They have since sold the complex.
My mom was in two facilities -- a SNF at a NFP place, and a for-profit memory care.
The folks at the SNF, for which my dad served on their board of trustees for 10 years, never bothered to tell me that my mother was in the wrong level of care. She didn't need skilled nursing -- she had dementia -- and because she needed little hands-on care, she was left to sit in her room alone day-in and day-out while they charged me $12,000 per month.
After seven months of that, my husband said we needed to get her out of there before she died of neglect, and he was right. I moved her to an excellent for-profit memory care where she received marvelous, loving care for the next 2 1/2 years at $8500/month.
Since then, the non-profit place has lost their skilled nursing license.
Don't rule out for-profit places. Non-profit might make people saints, but it doesn't make them competent.
Thank you MJ1929. Apologies for late response. I had this notion that NFPs always offer better care for less $. I will include for-profits in my search.
My MIL has been in 2 facilities, both were NFP. The first one was owned/operated by a small local church, a small denomination. They were very nice people, it was affordable and she got good care there. The facility was clean and "just enough" for her. On Medicaid.
Then we transferred her to a NFP facility that is much closer to our house and has a long-standing, stellar reputation. It is a bigger facility run by a much larger denomination. She has a private room (on Medicaid), and it offers more activities and events, has a salon, movie theatre, garden plots for residents, and more.
My opinion is that a larger organization has better funding from within, so in the case of NFP I would look closely into its long-standing reputation, what it offers, ratings from the community (like from Nextdoor.com), staff turnover (mostly admin should be stable), communiciations should be timely and often, etc.
The way this current facility handled the first covid outbreak in 2020 was nothing less than heroic. The staff and admins basically lived there, while they were literally testing and treating residents, rearranging floors to create covid units, keeping up communicatioins with families, complying with CDC directives, moving beds close to windows so family could visit, etc. It enabled my MIL to survive having it after 4 weeks on hospice. She is 100% back to her self and we will be forever grateful that she was spared the truly terrible experiences of so many other elders and their families had.
I hope you can find a facility like this. I would start by asking the community on Nextdoor.com which will identify and narrow down your search a lot faster.
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We have a community run by the Quakers. It started out as a NH, added AL and independent living. They had that buy in thing. GFs Aunt was in a IL apartment. My GFs mother was her POA and handled the finances. Aunt had a stroke and was transferred to the NH section. When she bought in she was told that 90% or 90k (can't remember how it went) would go towards her stay in the NH if ever needed. They tried to bill GFs mother for her Aunts care in the NH. My GFs mother said they were wrong and said she would get her lawyer involved.
I think the Quakers bit off more than they could chew. They have since sold the complex.
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The folks at the SNF, for which my dad served on their board of trustees for 10 years, never bothered to tell me that my mother was in the wrong level of care. She didn't need skilled nursing -- she had dementia -- and because she needed little hands-on care, she was left to sit in her room alone day-in and day-out while they charged me $12,000 per month.
After seven months of that, my husband said we needed to get her out of there before she died of neglect, and he was right. I moved her to an excellent for-profit memory care where she received marvelous, loving care for the next 2 1/2 years at $8500/month.
Since then, the non-profit place has lost their skilled nursing license.
Don't rule out for-profit places. Non-profit might make people saints, but it doesn't make them competent.
Then we transferred her to a NFP facility that is much closer to our house and has a long-standing, stellar reputation. It is a bigger facility run by a much larger denomination. She has a private room (on Medicaid), and it offers more activities and events, has a salon, movie theatre, garden plots for residents, and more.
My opinion is that a larger organization has better funding from within, so in the case of NFP I would look closely into its long-standing reputation, what it offers, ratings from the community (like from Nextdoor.com), staff turnover (mostly admin should be stable), communiciations should be timely and often, etc.
The way this current facility handled the first covid outbreak in 2020 was nothing less than heroic. The staff and admins basically lived there, while they were literally testing and treating residents, rearranging floors to create covid units, keeping up communicatioins with families, complying with CDC directives, moving beds close to windows so family could visit, etc. It enabled my MIL to survive having it after 4 weeks on hospice. She is 100% back to her self and we will be forever grateful that she was spared the truly terrible experiences of so many other elders and their families had.
I hope you can find a facility like this. I would start by asking the community on Nextdoor.com which will identify and narrow down your search a lot faster.
https://mylifesite.net/blog/post/for-profit-or-not-for-profit-ccrcs-whats-the-difference/