Discharge Planning

Intuitively, you likely know what the essential skills are for living independently and on your own in the community: You need to be able to walk (or otherwise get around your environment), eat, and toilet yourself. You also need to be able to obtain and prepare food, keep yourself and…

If you or a loved one has been hospitalized in recent years, you’ve probably had this experience: You’ve barely put on the hospital gown when a “discharge planner” starts the conversation about where you’ll go once the hospital decides you should leave. It’s not necessarily a bad thing to start…

In today’s financially pressured health care environment, the interests of a hospital may not always neatly align with the health and well being of a patient. This is especially true at discharge, when the hospital may face economic pressure to have the patient leave, even if the patient’s health is…

At some point you may get this call: your older loved one is in the hospital and doctors are monitoring the situation to determine what’s going on. With luck, nothing dangerous or life-threatening will be found and perhaps your loved one will leave the hospital after a day or two….