NN 2024 is scheduled to take place in Baltimore from July 11-13 of this year. I haven't been there in a while, but it's nearby so I'll go there by car. I wonder if this will be the venue for protests, but since many university students will be at home, abroad, or at work, I expect the scale of the protests to subside by midsummer. There is. I'll admit that the idea of hearing the chant “Genocide Joe Must Go” outside the NN convention in downtown Baltimore certainly sounds like a uniquely bizarre occasion. It should be interesting anyway. As usual, I'm at the bar.
What I suspect is certainly not on the minds of the mostly young protesters – whichever side they happen to be on – is that they are well into their 80s. It is their future potential. Livelihood support, Long-term care facilities. I'm also a little removed from those days, looming vaguely and indistinctly on the horizon, but in the past year, after my father passed away, I gently nudged my girlfriend's mother in, and I remembered those days. I have become very conscious of this.
There weren't many options. Full-time home care, if you can find it, can cost $15,000 to $20,000 a month, but it's not covered by Medicare, so it's not a realistic option unless you're willing to risk your own life long before her mother dies. There was no. Her side of her family is incredibly long-lived. And my family and I are not prepared, both mentally and physically, to deal with the array of medical problems faced by older adults whose inevitable falls tend to debilitate them beyond any hope of self-sufficiency. It wasn't done. That is, my mother, who was already far past that point, was not going to live with us.
But luckily (for me), both of my parents grew up with remnants of the Great Depression and saved enough money to take care of themselves. Still, even the best living support provided by trained medical technicians and nurses cannot prevent the inevitable falls (my mother has had no fall-related hospitalizations since entering the facility last year). five times, and their medical bills would have totaled about $500,000 (Medicare did not pay them).
The facility's policy is to call an ambulance and generally go to the ER for a medical checkup every time an elderly person experiences a serious fall. That's because AL facilities are not hospitals or nursing homes, and although they are staffed by (some) nurses, they lack the staff, equipment, or necessary medications to perform medical evaluations and treatments. is. Most falls involve a blow to the head, which can obviously have the most serious consequences. The problem is that it is difficult to determine whether a fall is serious or not, and depending on the person's existing physical condition, it can be very difficult to determine if and how assistance can be provided, even when getting up. That can be difficult.
But as the population ages, more and more people absolutely need that kind of care, and the assisted living industry is now expanding with it. Not surprisingly, the number of falls among elderly people at these facilities is rapidly increasing. As Todd Frankel, writing for the Washington Post, reported, many facilities are now unwilling or afraid to pick people up off the floor (literally) in the event of a fall, so they routinely use local Seeking emergency medical help. These “lift assist” calls are now a huge burden on local ambulance companies. Instead of responding to fires, gun violence, and car accidents, they find themselves taking on the role of caregivers in nursing homes.
Lift-assisted 911 calls from assisted living homes and other senior living facilities have jumped 30% nationwide in recent years, reaching nearly 42,000 a year, according to a Washington Post analysis of fire department emergency call data. It turned out that there was. This is nearly three times faster than the growth in overall 911 calls over the same period from 2019 to 2022, data shows.
This increase means that these types of calls (involving people who have fallen and are uninjured but are unable to stand up) are handled by facility staff, which imposes an unreasonable burden on taxpayers and charges residents a fee. They have infuriated first responders who say they are occupying firefighters with non-emergency tasks. That can be as much as $7,000 per month.
Seasoned firefighters and emergency technicians are understandably frustrated when they are called in simply to help lift an uninjured person off the floor. But the main reason they are called, of course, is concern for liability. Frankel explains:[C]Companies want to avoid the risk and expense associated with picking someone up from the floor. ” Some assisted living facilities may even have a “no elevator” policy to avoid the risk of liability for employees (and even back injuries) and liability for owners. As Frankel points out, the experience of calling volunteer firefighters to help after a fall can be embarrassing and humiliating even for older adults, but in some areas He doesn't seem to care much about it.
Some cash-strapped local EMS services, including most, have started charging up to $800 extra for such calls. Although the charges are against the facility itself, as Frankel points out, there is nothing preventing the facility from simply passing the charge on to the patient. The American Seniors Housing Association, a group representing assisted living facilities across the country, strongly opposes local governments imposing such “fee-for-service” arrangements and, in some cases, legislation prohibiting their implementation. is supported. This creates an inherent and often escalating conflict between long-term care facilities and communities that require adequate emergency services. This is because long-term care facilities seek to leverage the relative capabilities of local ambulance companies.
Frankel said the assisted living industry is relatively unregulated (unlike nursing homes, which are heavily staffed), and that the majority of calls for this type of “lift assistance” come from these types of facilities. Point out. What he doesn't mention, but perhaps should, is that most long-term care facilities in the United States are run by private equity firms, whose concern is almost entirely about meeting revenue. That's what prevents us from investing in the people and equipment we need to combat this epidemic of people falling and not getting up.
At stake in this debate, of course, are the 1.2 million patients and residents of these types of facilities. Until you understand and experience the prevalence and impact of falls among seniors, it's easy to ignore or parody the late-night commercials for Life Alert (which, by the way, are overpriced. The best commercials are It's a bay alarm (as I found out, it's cheaper). But falls are no joke for seniors. It's deadly serious and it happens often. This is another example of how our nation's for-profit health care system is facing serious challenges as the nation's elderly population explodes.
I'm planning on leaving early tonight, but I'll catch up when I get back.
