When It’s Personal It’s Different – Choosing Rehab for Mom
Editor’s note: This article was written by guest blogger Anthony Cirillo, FACHE, ABC, a healthcare marketing and experience management expert and expert guide in assisted living for about.com. For more information about the author, please see our About page.
Let me tell you about my last couple of months. My mom, Philomena, is in Florida. She is 89. She has COPD, some CHF, has fallen a few times. In February she took her latest spill. She started getting shooting pains up and down her legs. She described them as electrical shocks. My sister lives nearby mom and one Sunday she called and said she was taking mom to the hospital. On Monday she called me. “Get down here!”
The neurosurgeon laid it out plain. Since mom had refused to have an operation a few years back to fuse her neck, her neck has become increasingly unstable with each fall. Have the operation now or face certain paralysis from your neck down. Mom is a trooper. She wants the operation even though for two weeks the neurosurgeon and pulmonologist keep telling us about the odds.
Let me cut to the chase. So of course mom makes it through the operation. She doesn’t even need to go to ICU after. Straight back to her room. No ventilator. And all the limbs were moving. Actually pretty miraculous. I think it shocked her because the biggest thing for her has been coping with the fact that she still has a life to lead.
So then all of a sudden my sister and I had to choose a rehabilitation center for mom. Okay, so our choices on her insurance plan were limited but there was still a dozen to choose from. I had to summon all of what I have imparted to others over the years and use it myself to try to pick the best place. No one in the hospital is going to do it for you. The most they can do is show you the options.
So I start on Medicare Compare and look at quality ratings. I really focus on two – staffing levels and quality. I rank the places accordingly not really knowing a thing about them.
Next, my sister and I start talking to people. It is amazing how in some circumstances the high quality ratings were matched by the positive word of mouth from those we spoke to about care choices. But then there was just the opposite – poor word of mouth matched against supposed high quality ratings.
Next, we went to visit the top three choices. The first was telling. They made us wait 45 minutes because someone was in a meeting. Hmm, will mom be waiting when she presses her call bell? Probably. The facility was adequate.
The second facility was better. We were immediately greeted. And on the tour a resident’s daughter told us unsolicited how great she thought the care was. This place will do we thought.
The final facility, which actually had the best quality ratings, was next. What an eye opener. The administrator was on the floor and we met her. Not so in the other places. There was a vibrancy about the place. The people there were as old as my mother, but they did not seem old. At the other places, the people of that age, well frankly, they seemed old. And you have to know mom to understand that when she sees people her age, she thinks they are old to begin with. My sister and I left nodding to each other as if to say “this is the one.”
Unfortunately because of availability, our second choice became our first. And it played out just as the tour conveyed – adequate. Moments of great care, moments of awful care. Well, circumstance had it that mom needed to go back to the hospital. And guess what? On discharge our first choice was available.
She has been there about a month now. And the care matches the good quality ratings and the good vibe we got walking through the place.
You can’t manufacture a good vibe. Some of it is cultural. You know it when you feel it. But what this taught me particularly is that the tour becomes the lynchpin in the decision-making process. I tell my healthcare colleagues that marketing comes down to word of mouth and that word of mouth is generated from the experiences people have with the care. I usually couch that in terms of what happens during the actual episodes of care. But in this case, the experience played a large role in helping us make a choice. Turns out it is the right one so far. So when people ask my sister and I the ultimate question – will you recommend this place to others? – we say yes.
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MacKenzie Kimball
MacKenzie Kimball is a Managing Editor in HCPro's long-term care division. She is the editor of the monthly newsletter PPS Alert for Long-Term Care and the MDS 3.0 Update e-newsletter.
MacKenzie has written 321 posts.
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Comments
I read your blog and appreciate you writing about care, quality and staffing.
I am a nursing home owner and operator in Massachusetts. We fight everyday to stay owner/operated as the big giants come in and take over the “smaller” homes (even tho we are 134 beds). However, that being said, there is always a place for everyone and not everyplace is the best for everyone!!! We are proud to be a 5 STAR and 2010 DPH deficiency free facility and I too am not an office sitter administrator!!! It is important to be out and about and I hope more NH Administrators will feel the same way. Again, thank you for writing a nice blog.
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