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Yahoo!Choosing an assisted living community can be daunting, and not surprisingly, an industry has arisen to help people accomplish it. Always Best Care Senior Services is one of the options available in Santa Barbara. A franchise owned by entrepreneur Patrick MacMichael, Always Best also has offices up and down Southern California, as well as in Colorado and Ohio. The company offers personalized referrals for assisted living placements for seniors, and the clients and their families pay nothing for the service.
The senior care facilities pay Always Best once a placement is confirmed. MacMichael and his staff stressed the lack of bias that goes into the Always Best referrals. They claimed that no facilities receive any special treatment: Seniors are placed with the home that best suits their needs and not the needs of Always Best, which receives a flat fee from the facility for every confirmed placement. Every facility pays the same fee, thereby negating a potential for bias.
MacMichael has a personal investment in senior care because his own grandmother suffered a stroke at 86, and he was unable to care for her himself because she lived in New Jersey and he did not have the option of shopping around for the best facility. Frustrated by the experience and after 10 years in sales, he made a career switch and opened the Santa Barbara branch of Always Best in November 2007.
Always Best claims to be the only company that offers “dual-care,” which is both in-home services and the assisted living placement. “As far as I know,” said MacMichael, “we’re the only one that combines the two into one company.” MacMichael went around the Santa Barbara and Ventura area, investigating all licensed assisted living facilities—over 240 in both counties, he said. Such facilities had the option to decline an alliance with Always Best, but there is no fee to the facilities unless a senior is placed there, so there is no reason to refuse the service unless the retirement community already has enough business without the extra help from Always Best. He said that only ten to 15 of the facilities declined.
The assisted living facilities were all catalogued as to specific criteria (price, location, social scene, etc.) with which they match the seniors. The most expensive facility, according to MacMichael, isn’t always the most appropriate for each person.
Staff screening for the in-home care is taken very seriously, he said, with multiple interviews required before hiring. Once hired, employees are assigned according to their skill level, with some providing more general aid, such as housekeeping and transportation, and others caring for Alzheimer’s and dementia patients. He emphasized that Always Best employees are insured, covered by workers’ compensation, and have passed a criminal background check.
MacMichael also offers a side service for aged veterans, independent of Always Best. He opened an office in Santa Barbara to provide educational resources for veterans, who are referred to various non-profits (frequently government-sponsored) that specialize in various areas of aiding veterans, such as fighting for more money from Uncle Sam.
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WARNING! Do your homework when checking out & selecting a care facility. Some local facilities appear to be posh and top-notch on the surface, but do your research! A trip to the S.B. Courthouse is a must to see if any legal actions have been filed or are currently underway against a facility. Also, a check with the CA Dept of Health Services in Oxnard to see if any violations, deficiencies or citations have been issued against a care facility is also a must. Some S.B. places have had and currently have lawsuits in progress after a recent check at the courthouse. Remember - you don't always get what you pay for! Research like crazy because it's your loved one(s) & a LOT of hard earned money to keep them in a Santa Barbara area care facility! You deserve only THE BEST place with zero blemishes on their record.
Barron (anonymous profile)
May 10, 2008 at 11:13 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Going through it now with my own mother. The place she is in now looks like a high-end antique store when you walk in the door, and the stench of lavender room freshener is absolutely overpowering.
The rooms are very bright, nice and immaculate, but there are three beds crammed in with one tv and no remote, and no phones (which is OK because mom has her own cell phone, but still...for THAT price!), they charge each patient a fee for the cable tv and....
...the language barrier between patients and families and the staff is almost insurmountable. Nobody knows anything, everyone is harried, hurried, overworked and clearly underpaid, and since I don't speak Spanish or Tagalog, I get no answers when I try to talk to the nurses or staff....just that vacant smile and "oh, she's doing fine."
And she isn't....the therapy she is supposed to be getting is nonexistent, she can no longer stand up on her own, is using diapers, and is bombed out of her skull on medication every time we call there. Insurance has us by the short hairs, we are all getting on and in various states of disability and can't lift her and change diapers every 30 minutes, and it's a nightmare.
And still, we get the vacant smiles and platitudes from the staff.
Everything's fine.
Insurance is booting her out next week, now completely dependent, and we're all stuck. All this was because she got pneumonia, and now is totally helpless. No therapy was given to get her on her feet, nothing at all.
This is what happens when the predators who own these places pay chickenfeed for wages and work people to death; they can only get people with minimal if any language skills, and nobody knows anything, one hand has no idea what the other is doing, and meanwhile, my mom is a basket case. And worse, she KNOWS it.
Happy Mother's Day, mom. I wish I were made out of money so you had never been transferred to that fancy hellhole from Cottage Hospital after only 5 days.
I'm going after these bozos starting tomorrow.
Everyone else...be real careful. Trust no one, not even the doctors and especially not nursing home staff and owners.
Holly (anonymous profile)
May 12, 2008 at 12:42 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Several publicly funded agencies can help with placement at no cost to the client.
Get your older loved ones Medi-Cal if they qualify.
They may qualify even if they own a home.
Many facilities will do a "Medi-Pay".
ie:Their insurance combined with Medi-Cal.
Mission Terrace and Buena Vista are low income facilities. Okay. Nothing deluxe.
If you stay on top of them and TIP THE STAFF.
You will get better service.
TIPPING will help you help your loved ones.
Be kind to the staff and it will be rewarded.
They work in a low paying fairly depressing job.
It would wear on anyone.
It is an awful thing we are doing. Keeping these older folks alive with NO quality of life.
I am for the "ice flow" my self.
When I walk through the halls of these places ,they are lined with feeble little bodies in wheelchairs,half conscious or completely unconscious. Crying,yelling,dieing for someone to offer them just the littlest bit of affection.
These people who raised us and fought wars and created homes for us. Worked and wept and prayed for us. The government makes no sense. Supporting a war that is not defending us.Instead of spending the money on quality health care for all of us. ALL OF US.
We owe our mothers and fathers more than they are getting.
But there are angencies and people out there that can help. It really does takes a village.,,,and it always will.
Find a way to help.
It will come back to you.
emenzies (anonymous profile)
May 12, 2008 at 12:40 p.m. (Suggest removal)
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