A question about Nursing homes Vs Assisted living...

She sounds like a good candidate for ALF placement when she is through w/ her rehab. The key is whether her health conditions can be considered "stable and predictable" (because of the staffing makeup in ALFs, they usually don't like to take people on sliding-scale insulin, dysphagia diets etc., and generally need to be a 1-person assist w/ ADLs). I agree with you, she doesn't sound like someone who needs to be in a nursing home permanently. Check with some ALFs in your area and see what they can do for her; in some areas, residents can even receive on-site physical therapy services from a home health agency so they don't have to go to the NH for that. It's worth a try!

Medicare does not pay for long-term care of any sort, unless it's skilled nursing, and then only for 100 days in a given year. Private insurance (in some circumstances) and Medicaid do cover ALF stays as well as NH placements, and of course those who have the funds can pay out-of-pocket. Generally, assisted living is less expensive than nursing homes, and it's more "homelike" with private or semi-private apartments.

I hope your grandmother can go to AL but she will need quite a bit of money if you want her in a nice one.

Let us know how she does.

renerian

I'm still in school, but have been thinking about working in an assisted living facility when I graduate. What level of education do most prefer and what is the job and pay like on average?

Assisted living is not what I would recommend for someone just starting out. You don't have much opportunity to use your technical skills, and like everything else, if you don't use it, you lose it. Also, you need experience in all areas of geriatric assessment, including psychosocial and spiritual, which are things most nurses don't get much of in school.

Once you do have some solid experience, assisted living is a fun work environment as the residents usually have at least some of their wits about them and are not acutely ill. The educational level of nurses isn't all that important; many ALFs have LPNs only, and RNs can do quite well with an associate degree or diploma. The pay tends to be on the low side, as many of them are owned by for-profit corporations, and they may not give you enough on-site hours to do all the work that needs to be done. (For example, I was in the building only 20 hours a week, and in that time I had to do in-home screenings of potential clients, write service plans, teach and supervise unlicensed staff, do quarterly assessments of on-site residents, deal with physicians & families, do admissions, help the administrator run the facility, check all the physician's order sheets, review medications, check the alert charting.........well, you see what a challenge it can be.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do!