Private Pay vs. Medicaid Pay for nursing homes

Atty. Tom Olsen: Well, let's reassure the listening audience out there by the way, and that is that almost every nursing home in Central Florida, I think all but two, they all have Medicaid beds. There's no difference between a Medicaid bed and a private pay bed, correct?

Atty. Robert Hidock: Correct. In fact, they go one step further by Florida statute. The nurses and CNAs, the floor staff are not allowed to know who's on Medicaid and who's private pay. Of course, the administration knows but the staff doesn't know, so they don't provide preferential treatment to one or the other.

Atty. Olsen: Whether you're a Medicaid pay or a private pay, that in and of itself is not going to make a difference in the type of treatment that you get or what bed you happen to be in, flat out, period. I think that we've come to learn from experience, and is that if you've got a loved one in a nursing home, the best way to get good care for them is you got to show up, and check in on mom and dad.

Atty. Hidock: That is 100% the key. When we went to this experience with my grandmother, my mom would go on her way to work. She would go on her way home from work. I would go on my way to law school, just check in, and the staff knew we were coming. My grandmother and her husband were treated like kings and queens. It was the best that experience could be for what it was.

Atty. Olsen: That's a key if you've got somebody in nursing home is go visit them quite often. Make sure the staff knows that you're coming to visit on them, and that in and of itself is what's going to get the quality of care that you would want your loved one to have in a nursing home.

Atty. Hidock: Yes. Sadly enough, sometimes some family will just park someone in a nursing home, never go see them, and unfortunately, that person doesn't get the care that they probably need.

Atty. Olsen: By the way, we keep talking about a nursing home, but the technical term for it is long-term care facility?

Atty. Hidock: Skilled nursing facility.

Atty. Olsen: Skilled nursing facility. Okay. Those are one and the same thing?

Atty. Hidock: Absolutely.

Atty. Olsen: Yes, but people do generally refer to them as nursing homes. Is that right?

Atty. Hidock: I think that's going to be the way it is forever.

Atty. Olsen: Okay. I'm not sure it's the best way to refer to them, but that's what people know versus a skilled nursing facility.

[00:02:19] [END OF AUDIO]