A Better Kind of Nursing Home

[pnwmom]

17. That caution would apply to anyone in a nursing home, Green House or not.

If an adult child wants an inheritance, they might try to save their parent's money by keeping their parent at home.

But my relative on Medicaid is living as comfortably at the home as she was when she was on private pay -- in the same room, with the same everything -- so she feels no loss in not having a bank account anymore.

My advice to anyone who thinks a relative might need nursing care eventually is NOT to drain all their resources in high levels of assisted living care or on round-the-clock aides; but to enter a nursing home while the elder still has enough assets (for example, a house that can be sold) to qualify for private-pay at a nursing home. The good ones all have waiting lists, so if they wait till they're desperate, they might not have any good choices.