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How to Choose a Long-Term Care Home for Your Loved One
Helpful tips to navigate the different options
If you’re reading this, I can only imagine you must be desperate for information the same way I was a year and a half ago when my mother had a massive stroke, and my father and I were trying to make sense of how to do the right thing for her within the confines of the British Columbia healthcare system; so first of all, I want to say, I’m so sorry you’re having to go through this, too.
This post is about our experience finding a long-term care home for my mother. In the process, we learned about the importance of a loved one’s capabilities when trying to find a suitable home as well as determining the differences between subsidized long-term care homes versus private facilities.
Although I am located in BC, Canada, my findings are possibly similar to wherever you live in the world.
Long-Term Care Home versus Assisted Living
By the way, in case you’re as confused as I was in the beginning, a long- term care home is for seniors that require 24/7 care, also sometimes called a nursing home.
It’s not the same as assisted living, independent living, or a retirement home, which is for seniors who can still live on their own, but may need some help with cleaning, cooking, or laundry.
Subsidized Long-Term Care Homes
A publicly subsidized long-term care home is for adults with complex care needs that require 24-hour care due to a physical disability or mental condition, like dementia. These homes are either owned and operated by your local Health Authority, or are operated by private providers that have contracts with the Health Authority, and have limited subsidized rooms.
Access is based on a person’s assessed need, so the first step is to contact your closest community care access line. You will be assigned a community case manager who will come and do the assessment and is your go-to if you have questions throughout the process.
Pros
- Cheaper — Monthly cost is 80% of your after-tax income
- You can choose to waitlist for up to 3 preferred care homes. Your choices can be changed anytime throughout the process.
Cons
- We found the community case managers had seen few care homes so they could not advise us on the best care homes for our situation.
- There was little info on websites about the place or what was included/not included in the monthly cost.
- Waitlist times (at the time of this writing) are about 1.5–2 years.
- You (usually) can’t tour the place until you are accepted.
- You have 72 hours to accept an interim care home offer and move in. This is a temporary care home if your situation is urgent or you are waiting in hospital or another facility.
- You have 48 hours to accept a preferred care home offer and move in.
- Facilities are often older and have less amenities; physiotherapy and occupational therapy are either non-existent or minimally available.
- Ratio of staff to resident (at the time of this writing) is about 10 to 1.
Private Long-Term Care Homes
A private long-term care home is privately owned and operated and is not connected with a local Health Authority. No rooms are publicly subsidized.
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Pros
- You can tour the place right away.
- You can move in right away if there is availability.
- Their website is usually better at outlining what’s included/not included
- Facilities are often newer, and have more amenities like movie theatres.
- Food can be better, and is often restaurant-style, giving residents more options.
Cons
- Expensive — about $10 000 — $15 000/month. If your loved one requires care because of cognitive decline, Memory Care floors are more expensive.
- Often come unfurnished, like an apartment
- Ratio of staff to resident is not always better, so need to do research
Our Tips
To help us with our decision, we used word of mouth, calling the care homes directly for information, Google reviews, and other reviews across the internet. Even if we couldn’t take a tour, we drove to the care home to check out how old the building was, parking availability, the neighbourhood, the gardens, and if there were good walking paths for walkers.
In terms of touring subsidized long-term care homes, the key word is persistence and to not take no for an answer, but to also appreciate that the staff are very busy, caring, and dedicated people.
Take Away
Overall, we discovered that it was a huge learning process and our criteria changed over time as we got more knowledgeable about what we really wanted. It is important to take the time to make a decision you can be comfortable with.
For us, we found the best way to make an informed decision was to take a tour, if at all possible, so you could get a feel for the place and the staff and if it was a good fit for your loved one, and if the residents seemed happy or miserable.
In the end, we went with a subsidized long-term care home, not by choice, but because private long-term care homes were completely unaffordable long-term for us.
I hope you found our experience useful, even if you don’t live in BC, and I wish you luck, my friend.
