Keep Her Home

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Start here: the order to read this site in

You typed the promise into a search box, maybe at 2 a.m., and landed on a site with nineteen articles. You do not need all of them tonight. These steps follow the order the decisions usually arrive in, so what you read first is what you need first.

  1. Get through the first two days

    Before you plan anything, sort what you know from what you do not. Has she signed any papers? Which hours of the day have no one in them? What equipment is already in the house? Whose phone number answers clinical questions? That short inventory is the first read, and it is meant for the week you feel least prepared.

    If a sentence you write down sounds like a medical question, it is one. Save it for her doctor.

  2. Find out what she actually asked for

    "No nursing home" is a wish about a place and a way of living. One mother means her bedroom. Another means her chair by the front window. Another means only that she never wants to leave this address. Ask which, because each one leads to a different plan.

  3. Write her wishes down while she can say them

    Missouri lets a person name who speaks for her if she cannot. The Missouri Bar publishes a free form for it. This step is planning, not a prediction, and it is easiest while she is well enough to sign it and to explain what she means.

  4. Walk the house, one room at a time

    Use the five rooms on the front page: front steps, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, stairs. Stand in each one and ask what gets hard there. Then read the pieces that stay in one room: the house as a whole, her own bed, and her own armchair.

  5. Count the hours, then learn who covers which

    Home health comes in visits. Medicaid in-home services have their own assessment. Private duty is shift work a family buys. If she or her husband served, VA may cover some help. The question that ties all of it together is which kind of help is in the house at night.

  6. Turn the family into a schedule

    Love does not fill a Tuesday night. Put names next to hours, say out loud which hours nobody can take, and decide together what to do about those.

  7. If she is in the hospital right now

    A discharge meeting can move fast. Go in knowing what you will ask about going home, what the hospital owes you in writing, and how to keep home on the list without arguing with anyone who is trying to keep her safe.

  8. Look at the whole picture honestly

    Keeping her home is one good answer. These reads cover what makes it possible, how to do it in order, and the questions to weigh together if the house cannot hold a need. Choosing another setting later is not a broken promise.

  9. If the house is in west county

    Two reads are written for specific places: a Chesterfield house and a Eureka house farther out.

When you are ready for names and numbers, the local help directory lists St. Louis and Missouri programs, each checked on its own page. If you would like to talk with someone about hours at home now, New Plan Care Solutions, the one paid placement on this site, answers a call or text at (314) 405-0887, or you can send a short note.