Assisted Living Utah Blog

One of the best options for Assisted Living in Orem, Utah is either of the three Bee Hive Homes of Orem (Bee Hive Home I, Bee Hive Home II, or Bee Hive Home III). Owner, Randy Cottle, exudes confidence and integrity the moment you meet him and is someone you will feel confident in caring for your loved one. Bee Hive Homes of Orem are unique in that they are smaller in size (9-16 beds) and are much less costly compared to large communities (generally saving you over $750 each month). Multiply this by twelve months and you’re saving thousands of dollars in your assisted living costs. The home-like setting is ideal for families who don’t want their loved one lost in a crowd or the intimate feel that’s unique to a small community. Bee Hive Home of Orem fit right in with the local, residential community and are not situated in busy commercial areas, which adds to the home-like atmosphere. The services and amenitites that you’ll find in this Orem assisted living community are exactly what people look for when searching for the right assisted living facility for their loved one. Call us for more details about assisted living in Utah at (801) 492-4115 and get free information about VA benefits and other benefits for elderly people living in assisted living.

The question that will Medicaid or Medicare pay for your stay in an assisted living facility in Utah is common. The answer is simple. Medicare will not pay for assisted living, but Medicaid can. Let me explain how Medicaid can pay for your assisted living costs. In Utah, there is a program that was called Flexcare (recently changed names to New Choices Waiver). In my humble opinion, I would much rather have my parent in an assisted living facility as opposed to a skilled nursing facility. I’ve worked in both and assisted living is almost always more homelike and less like a hospital. Having said this, how do you become eligible for the New Choices Waiver? First of all, you would have to already be eligible for the Long-Term Care Medicaid program and you have to be in a skilled nursing facility for 90 days. Once you are on the Long-Term Medicaid program in the skilled nursing facility, you would contact a representative from New Choices Waiver (again, this is the program that pays for assisted living. It’s like a branch of Medicaid) so they can assign somone from their department to meet with you and get the paperwork complete for the application and assess whether or not you are eligible medically. Once you are on the New Choices Waiver program, you and the case manager from New Choices Waiver would look for an assisted living facility that has a bed available for this program. Depending on how full their building is, this will determine whether or not they will accept you. If they only have a couple beds available, they will often keep those apartments for someone who will pay privately since it would make them more money; however, if they have several rooms available, they would most likely be willing to have someone come in on the New Choices Waiver program. So will there be any cost to you? Of course (as always). This cost is negotiated between you and the facility. Basically, the New Choices Waiver program pays for the “care costs” and you have to pay for the room and board. This amount is typically anywhere between $400 and $800, but it could vary from this as well. This is just typically what I’ve seen in my experience. For the best contacts to Utah’s Medicaid and New Choices Waiver, contact us.

For more detailed advice, visit us at AssistedLivingUtah.com. Don’t hesitate to call us either. We do not charge you anything for advice and we don’t try to sell anything to you. I guarantee it. Call (801) 492-4115 or toll free (866) 979-9989. You can also email us at Admin@AssistedLivingUtah.com.

Medicare is the government plan to pay for someones stay in a hospital, skilled nursing facility, and some other medical expenses such as Home Health or Hospice. Usually the individual has to be at least 65 years old to be eligible for Medicare. Medicare will not pay for assisted living which is often news to someone looking for assisted living.

There is Medicare Part A, Medicare Part B, and Medicare Part D.

Medicare Part A is the one that will cover your stay in a hospital and your stay in a skilled nursing facility. It will usually cover 100% of your hospital stay and then if you go to a skilled nursing facility, it will cover 100% of your first 20 days and then 80% of the next 80 days (it will no longer pay anything after 100 days). Also, in order for your stay at a skilled nursing facility to be paid by Medicare Part A, you will usually have to have a “3-day qualifying stay” in the hospital. Ninety percent of the time, the way that someone will be able to use their Medicare Part A will be due to a major hip replacement, surgery from a broken hip/knee/or other major medical onset. This will usually cause the individual to stay in the hospital for 3 nights, thus qualifying them to have Medicare Part A pay for their stay in a skilled nursing facility while they rehabilitate.

Medicare Part B is the one that will pay for your home health (a company that might provide help with physical therapy in your home or in an assisted living facility). If you are still in a skilled nursing facility and have used up your 100 days of Medicare Part A, you could continue to receive the different therapies (Physical, Occupational, Speech, etc) as long as they assess you and you meet the guidelines and this will be covered by Medicare Part B.

Medicare Part D is the one that helps pay for medications.

For more detailed advice, visit us at AssistedLivingUtah.com. Don’t hesitate to call us either. We do not charge you anything for advice and we don’t try to sell anything to you. I guarantee it. Call (801) 492-4115 or toll free (866) 979-9989. You can also email us at Admin@AssistedLivingUtah.com.

Assisted living facilities offer the elderly a place to live outside of their own home where they can receive basic assistance in the form one or more of the following: housekeeping, meal preparation, 24-7 monitoring, shower assistance, toileting, medication assistance or reminders, transportation, eating, dressing, activities, socialization, etc. Other synonymous terms for assisted living could be residential care, board and care, senior living, etc. In assisted living, your loved one will likely have their own apartment unless you or your loved one consents to sharing a room with someone. A private bathroom is most often in the apartment to allow for privacy and dignity. Most facilities will have a kitchenette in the apartment with a sink, microwave, refrigerator, and cupboard space. Each apartment will likely be climate controlled individually. There will be access to common areas such as a t.v. room, an activity room, dining room, library, sitting areas, etc.

Assisted living facilities vary in size. In what is termed a small assisted living facility, you will have 16 or fewer apartments/rooms (much like a residential home). In what is called a large facility, you will have more than16 apartments/rooms and up to over 100 apartments/rooms. A typical day for your loved one in an assisted living facility could be that she (we’ll assume it’s your mother or grandma) will wake up Monday morning around 6:45 and receive assistance for a shower (which she receives on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) from the aide that she now knows and feels comfortable with. Breakfast will be available in the dining room (where she will usually be given her morning medication as needed) beginning at 7:30 a.m. and ending at 9:00 a.m. So she can make her way down there when it’s convenient between that 1 ½ hours. If she wants to have someone help her down there because she is too weak or she doesn’t remember how to get there, she can push her pendant/call light and an aide will arrive within a few short minutes to assist her. Morning exercises will begin at 9:30 a.m. in the activity room where she will do some stretches, leg lifts, rubber-band stretches, pole raises, etc. Card playing is directly after morning exercises so she will stay in the activity room to play UNO, Sevens, or another simple game with other residents. At 10:30 a.m. she can choose to take a scenic drive in the facility’s van that has a wheelchair lift, read the paper or a book near the fireplace in the lobby, or return to her room to watch her favorite television program. Lunch will run from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. after which she might return to her apartment (which is completely furnished with her personal belongings) to rest for a little while. At 2:00 p.m. there will be a cooking demonstration on how to make chocolate covered bananas either from a staff member or volunteer (the facility would love to have a family member be the one to do the cooking demo on a family’s favorite treat). At 3:00 p.m. a concert pianist will be coming to perform on the grand piano in the activity room and this might last 45 minutes. Dinner begins to be served at 4:30 p.m. and ends at 6:00 p.m. so she can arrive anytime before 6:00 p.m. At 6:30 p.m., after you’ve gotten off work and had dinner with the kids, you stop by to see what your mother did for the day and she is too tired to even talk about. Actually, she can pick and choose which activities draw her attention more and only attend those. All in all, assisted living is a great option for seniors who are either unable to care for some of their basic needs or who just want to have someone to be around for a good time. If you’re searching for an assisted living facility in Utah, you’ll want to visit us online for several reasons.

Don’t hesitate to call us either. We do not charge you anything for advice and we don’t try to sell anything to you. I guarantee it. Call (801) 492-4115 or toll free (866) 979-9989. You can also email us at Admin@AssistedLivingUtah.com.

There are close to 100 Nursing Homes (properly named Skilled Nursing Facilities) in the state of Utah. For a comlplete list of nursing homes in Utah, please visit the following link…

http://www.medicare.gov/NHCompare/Include/

DataSection/Questions/HomeSelect.asp

A Nursing home in Utah is a facility where someone would go to if they needed 24 hour care from a registered/licensed nurse and/or to receive rehabilitation from a licensed therapist. The way that most elderly people would enter in a nursing home is because of a fall that caused them to go to the hospital where they might stay for 3-5 days and then be discharged to a skilled nursing facility. The hospital will simply stabilize you and maybe do the knee or hip surgery and then send you to a nursing home where you would get rehab from a physical therapist, occupational therapist, or speech therapist onsite (depending on the need and doctor’s orders). The nursing home costs will most likely be covered by Medicare up to 100 days with a co-pay of 20% after the first 20 days of your stay. Then if you are still unsafe to go home alone, you would either move in with family, get someone to come into your home as needed (which can be very costly for someone to come 24/7), or move to an assisted living center (properly known as assisted living facility). You can usually continue to receive what is called Home Health either at home or at the assisted living facility. This is an agency that again, is paid by Medicare 100% but without a co-pay currently. Home Health will provide continued therapy as needed (usually up to 6 weeks). For a more detailed consultation, contact me at anytime. I get reimbursed by assisted living facilities for providing you with information regarding assisted living in Utah.

For more detailed advice, visit us at AssistedLivingUtah.com. Don’t hesitate to call us either. We do not charge you anything for advice and we don’t try to sell anything to you. I guarantee it. Call (801) 492-4115 or toll free (866) 979-9989. You can also email us at Admin@AssistedLivingUtah.com.

This is a very important question, especially when your loved one requires a lot of care. I actually used to work in a skilled nursing facility as the administrator and now I work in an assisted living community as an administrator, so I’ve seen how the two work. If your loved one is completely incontinent (unable to control his/her bowel and bladder) and is unable to self feed, this may seem like someone that needs to be in a skilled nursing facility; however, this is not always the case. A person with these needs can easily be in an assisted living community. At my assisted living community, we have a memory care unit where about 30% of the residents require assistance with eating and who are also incontinent (who we may change every 2-3 hours). The families of these residents highly prefer assisted living as compared to a skilled nursing facility because of the atmosphere, cost, etc. It is much more home-like as opposed to a hospital-like facility like many skilled nursing facilities are. The point where your loved one would need and the state would require them to be in skilled nursing would be if they require skilled care from an RN such as one or more of the following: regular injections (if it’s only occasionally, the assisted living community can often offer this with the Registered Nurse on staff), a feeding tube, IV, or other skilled need. Also, if the resident requires assistance from two or more people to evacuate in case of an emergency, then the state says they cannot be in an assisted living community and thus would require a skilled nursing facility.

If you’re looking for an assisted living facility in Utah, you’ll want to go through AssistedLivingUtah.com. It makes it much easier to choose the right facility for you and your loved one.

For more detailed advice, visit us at AssistedLivingUtah.com. Don’t hesitate to call us either. We do not charge you anything for advice and we don’t try to sell anything to you. I guarantee it. Call (801) 492-4115 or toll free (866) 979-9989. You can also email us at Admin@AssistedLivingUtah.com.