Your thoughts on new Medicare guidance

Which resident choice, based on the new Medicare guidance’s focus on individual preferences, will be most difficult to deliver?

Comments:

– The facility noise will awaken patients.

– I believe that wake-up time would also affect the dining hours, especially breakfast. Then it would be difficult to time the noon meal. If a resident eats at 10 a.m., when should the “lunch” meal be served? Sometimes I eat as late as 9 p.m. for the evening meal. Do we have staff stay that late to accommodate this?

– Wake-up time as it affects all of the other preferences.

– Consider mode of bathing. Many patients accustomed to baths are being routinely given showers due to staff preference rather than patient preference.

– Ideas for dining would be helpful

– Due to dietary hours as they are it would be difficult to meet individual residents’ preferences as to when they dine.

– Dining time is difficult because certain residents have got to be fed, supervised, and have special diets. If time is a personal request there are not enough nurses to remain in the dining room, feed those in bed, or remain in the feeders’ dining room. If personal time is scattered the problem would be that food served at different times would require more staff, which is one of the things that has been cut down.

– Breakfast is easy to cook on demand. Lunch and dinner are more difficult to implement.

– It may be challenging to get employees to embrace the changes, but providers need to remind themselves that they’re here for the residents convenience—not their own.

What worries you about the new guidance? Submit your thoughts in the comments below.

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