Consumer Guide to Long-Term Care - Softcover

Entry into the long-term health care system often happens suddenly. A mental or physical breakdown seriously weakens a person's health, leaving her or him unable to cope with a host of complex decisions, rules, and information. Families must nevertheless make rapid, vital decisions about long-term care, often involving a nursing home. At the same time, new state laws and federal regulations make it very difficult for consumers to understand the rules of long-term care that apply in particular cases -- let alone how to use them. Such traumatic situations can result in frustration, confusion, and panic -- but this book can help.

Consumer Guide to Long-Term Care
-- guides you in making decisions about nursing homes, home care, assisted living, and other options;
-- offers essential and current information, in one convenient source;
-- shows you how to protect your rights and ensure high standards of care;
-- takes the mystery out of managed care, prospective pricing, and bundled services;
- explains how to choose a facility, pay for care, even refuse care if you wish to;
-- tells you what good caregivers should know -- and what they should and must tell you!

Equipped with this book, you can make informed choices that ensure the best possible experience for yourself or a family member when long-term care becomes a necessity.

Gary R. Ilminen, R.N., has served as director of nursing in both nursing homes and in home health and currently works at the Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services in the Bureau of Health Care Financing, Managed Care Section.