What happens now
Most families arrive here knowing something has to change and very little else. This is the whole of what is ahead — nine things, in the order they usually happen. You do not have to do them in order, and you do not have to do them today.
Needing more help than one person can give is the ordinary reason families reach this point. It is not a failure, nothing here assumes anyone is moving anywhere, and nothing on this page will ask you to hurry.
Understand what's happening
Where things stand
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A few questions about what your parent can manage today and what has changed. Answer them in any order, leave and come back — nothing is lost, and nothing asks for an email address.
What kind of care
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Six kinds of senior care, and the words are used loosely everywhere except on a license. This says which one fits, why, and — just as often — that a move is not the answer yet.
What it costs, and who pays
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What her own metro area costs, from a named public survey we link to — and the arithmetic nobody paid a placement fee will show you: how many hours of care at home cost what assisted living costs here. We publish no price we cannot show you the source for.
Choose what fills each need
What they need help with
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The whole menu in one place: care at home, nursing, meals, housekeeping, transport, monitoring devices, the house, money and legal. Nine areas — most families need four or five and meet the rest one crisis at a time.
Who provides it near them
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Every licensed provider from the state's own register, not the ones who paid. Filter it by what actually matters to you: secured for dementia, accepts Medicaid, a small home rather than a campus.
Your shortlist
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Two or three worth a second look, side by side on the facts that decide things. The point is not the list — it is being able to say why these two to someone who has not been reading about this every night.
Visits, calls and questions
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A tour is a sales environment, visited by the person least equipped to resist one, and most of what separates two places is not visible on one. Five printable kits — what to ask, what to check in a public record, and the answers that should worry you — for a community you are touring, an in-home care agency, a caregiver you hire yourself, home health and hospice, and anyone who offers to help you choose.
The questions are here. Keeping a note of each visit, and what they answered, arrives with the care record.
Two more stages, designed and not built yet
- The care record. Who to call, what accounts exist, where the documents are, what happened when — whether or not anyone moves. No passwords, ever: only where the key is kept.
- Your family's access. Invite the people who should see this, including your parent, whose record it is. An invitation works only for the person it was sent to.
They are named here rather than hidden, because a map that leaves out half the journey is worse than one that says what is missing. Nothing above waits on them.
Where this lives
Everything on this page is stored in this browser and nowhere else — no account, no cookie, nothing sent to us. Clearing your browser clears it, so print it if it matters.