Once you’ve determined that an Adult Family Home is the best option for yourself or a loved one, now comes the process of placing them. The process is slightly different depending on your source of funds, in this we’ll cover both.
The necessary steps for placing yourself or a loved one in an Adult Family Home
1. Get an Assessment
While it may make sense to start out by looking at the different options available in your area, that can be a little premature without an Assessment.
You may have a reasonable idea on what the care needs are, the Assessment will give a detailed description of what the different care needs of you or your loved one, medical conditions, medications, dietary restrictions, behavior issues and other factors that may affect which Adult Family Homes can properly care for you or your loved one.
Without the Assessment a Provider cannot guarantee that they can accept the resident, give an accurate price or even legally accept them into their Adult Family Home.
If you are using Private Funds, then you’ll need to hire a Registered Nurse that specializes in Assessments. Our preferred RN is Michelle Lowder with MJGutenberg.
Home – MJGutenberg – Compassionate Healing
If you are on Medicaid, then you’ll need to contact the Case Manager for the client and request an Adult Family Home Assessment.
If you are not currently enrolled in the Long Term Care benefits through Medicaid, you can start that process by clicking below.
Washington Connection (Your Link to Services)
Please note that if you are on Medicaid or needing to sign up in order to move into an Adult Family Home, it is a longer process, the sooner you get that process started the better.
2. Finding an Adult Family Home
There are a lot of Adult Family Homes in Washington State. Approximately 3,000, with some cities having upwards of 300 or more. These homes can vary widely if or in in how much they require in private funds, what services they offer, what medical conditions they can accept and other criteria such as allowing smokers or pets.
If you are using LocalCareHomes.com, our site allows you to select from 37 different options for Care & Medical, as well as location, pets, smoking and more. We also post the most recent information provided regarding vacancies with each of the Adult Family Homes in our network.
Once you’ve used the filter to provide options that can work for you or your loved one based on the Assessment or your best knowledge of their care needs, then you can directly contact the Provider by “Requesting a Quote” or “Scheduling a Tour”.
The Provider will contact you and even without an Assessment, they should be able to get a good idea on if you or your loved one will be a good fit for their Adult Family Home.
3. Tour the Adult Family Home
While an AFH can be a perfect on paper and you had a great conversation with the Provider, nothing replaces seeing the Adult Family Home in person.
Adult Family Homes are truly a home for their residents and making sure that it feels like that for you and/or your loved one is extremely important.
Most every Adult Family Home that would be willing to accept a resident will do so based on the fact that they are confident they can provide the level of care and support that resident requires.
That being said, some of the issues that we’ve dealt with in helping families find a new Adult Family Home are not strictly care related, but more related to issues that are personal, social, lifestyle and location.
If the resident is on the younger side, then it’s often better to find an Adult Family Home that has some residents that are close in age.
If they are more active, it would be good to find an Adult Family Home that has more planned activities.
If they would feel more comfortable with other residents of the same gender then it would be a good idea to ensure that home has that.
While they may be able to offer the care that you or your loved one requires, it may not be the best personal fit and that is what you’ll discover as you tour different Adult Family Homes.
4. Selecting & Moving In
After you’ve toured the Adult Family Homes on your list and narrowed it down to the best Adult Family Home for you or your loved one, the rest is pretty easy.
If you are Medicaid, the Provider will handle everything with your Case Manager and you can set up a move-in date.
If you are Private Pay, they will require a payment, you’ll sign the necessary paperwork and then you’ll schedule a move-in date with the Provider to ensure they are prepared for you.
Once you or your loved on has moved in, you will have the personal cell phone number for the Provider and be able to talk to them about any concerns you may have and they’ll work with you in ensuring that you or your loved one has the best care plan possible for their situation and that they are living their best life.
We have created a website that makes it very manageable for a person to find an Adult Family Home on their own, but not every case is the same and the requirements of some are more specific than those of others.
In those cases, we are more than happy to help you find exactly what you are looking for and do the leg work of finding options that fit your criteria, so that all you need to do is talk to the Providers, Tour the Homes and pick which one feels right to you.
If you’d like assistance in your search, please call 206-686-4580.
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