Elderly For Sale: Placement Services Run The Gamut In Quality And Approach To Placing Seniors
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In yesterday's Seattle Times, Michael J. Berens wrote an article entitled: "Senior-care Placement Companies Scramble For Cash." In the article, Mr. Berens does an excellent job of pitting two competing business models for elder-care placement against each other: One is a nationwide internet-based service; the other is a locally based provider. Although both providers charge facilities the same amount for their service -- one month's rent -- that is where the similarities end. The differences between the two are both stark and disconcerting.
The nationwide internet-based company, A Place For Mom, is allegedly the nation's largest senior placement firm. The company never meets face-to-face with any senior it is placing; instead all contact is either via telephone or internet. It sends mass facsimile transmissions to its list of approved homes which contain potential residents and urges the facility to call the potential resident. Although they supposedly visit each facility in which they attempt to make a placement, that does not always happen. In fact, according to the article, A Place For Mom placed a resident at a facility which had been cited for hiring caregivers with felony convictions that should have disqualified them from working with vulnerable adults; lying to state investigators and fabricating records; and failing to provide proper care for 32 days to an 88-year-old woman who died from untreated pressure sores. Only after this fact was brought to A Place For Mom's attention by Mr. Berens, did it remove the facility from its list of approved homes.
On the other end of the spectrum is Careful Placement Adult Home Agency, which is a "one-man show" run by Brandon O'Larey. Mr. O'Larey visits each home he places residents in. He visits all potential residents. According to the article, Mr. O'Larey even visits people after he places them to make sure they are doing well and to check up on them. Perhaps this is not the best "business" model; isn't it, however, a more comfortable and caring process?
The moral of the story: Be careful when it comes to placement agencies; they may not always have your best interests in mind. There is no substitute for your own research and site visits to make certain the place you or your loved one is going is all it needs to be. Do not become just another "number" to a placement agency.
