My mother's assisted living facility MORE THAN DOUBLED her MONTHLY CARE FEE. She had just had an assessment done and needed no new services. Is that legal? It seems like there should be some laws as to how much these places can increase your bill- especially when no new services are needed. Most elderly people are living on a fixed income and can't afford an increase like this. I have spoken to them and they just said they had to increase their costs in order to be competitive in the market.
Aside: I am attempting to start a "caring community" in my area, where people striving to care for themselves healthfully, also strive to help each other - with information, sharing equipment, helping as they can, developing relationships with a nursing agency and other helpers, etc. I see this as a model that could be useful for many of us entering our last laps.
This is a generalization, but for the most part in terms of "senior" housing/medical facilities, government regulations only come into play when the facility is accepting government funds (aka Medicare/Medicaid). This gets most ALs off the radar because they so rarely accept Medicaid and Medicare, being a health insurance, does not pay for room and board. ALs that accept Medicaid usually severely limit the number of beds they reserve for Medicaid because the Medicaid payment is so low compared to what they can get for private pay residents. So you need to be very careful listening to the marketing speech that says " oh, when your Mom runs out of money, we accept Medicaid" because what may not be said is "if we have a dedicated Medicaid bed available at that time". If they don't have the bed.... out you go!
LTCs do accept Medicare/Medicaid (federal funds) so the government at least looks at what they charge but if they can provide spreadsheets and invoices during their audits (which are not as thorough or as frequent as I would like but that is another story as the government can't get experienced accountants because the government can't match the salaries of accounting firms) they may get a bit more in Medicaid funding but it will never match private pay. Medicare is going to pay the approved sum for approved skilled nursing/rehab (also less than private pay).
In all honesty, their costs probably have increased dramatically as everything has gone up. When eggs when from $2.00 per dz. to $4.89/dz many of us simply decreased our use of eggs but you can't do that in an AL or LTC so you can imagine what that kind of increase on the level of feeding 80 people can do. Now they have (supposedly) increased the amount they pay to try to attract LPNs and RNs although in NJ ALs do not have to have an RN on site as long as they have 24 access to one but they have to pay her (or her agency) something for the access. I have yet to see them increase the amount of money they pay CNAs who do the real "grunt" work (changing diapers, feeding, doing laundry) or the kitchen staff. So yes............. they remain incredibly understaffed in some key positions because the income that doesn't flow to the owners goes to administration, marketing and maintaining the beautiful buildings. I don't deny the owners a profit.... I just would like to see the profit a bit more evenly distributed.
Check her contract, but private pay ALs can pretty much do as they please w regard to costs. My folks spent about $400k in a 7 year period which means they depleted their life savings .... nobody can manage on just a monthly fixed income in AL! Unless that income is astronomical, savings must be tapped into.
I'm surprised they can more than double care fees and there are no regulations on this. If you lived in an apartment and they told you that they were going to more than double your rent I think a lot of people would move out. Not so easy when you are dealing with the elderly population.
Is there a provision that speaks to this?
In most instances they can do raises as they deem appropriate and necessary, and the resident has to decide whether to stay or to move to another facility.
POA may request a meeting with administration to discuss any raises; this may help.
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