Whenever you intake a new resident, you spend time getting to know them, their needs, and their preferences. Don’t stop at medication management and dietary concerns, though. Make end-of-life care planning a built-in part of your intake process.
This might feel early, but starting those conversations on intake means you get a natural in-road to develop a plan. And for both your resident and your Residential Care Facility for the Elderly (RCFE), that yields some serious benefits.
Here are a few reasons your RCFE should be initiating end-of-life care planning conversations as early as possible with your residents.
More Ease for Residents and Their Families
When the time comes to make end-of-life decisions, confusion and uncertainty make everything more difficult. When there’s a plan in place that everyone has already agreed on, taking the necessary steps becomes much easier. At a time when the emotional weight of the situation is already high, that makes a big difference for your residents and their families.
As a result, it’s important for residents to have an advance directive in place. This is legal documentation that names the power of attorney for another person (e.g., a family member) to make healthcare decisions for the resident once they’re no longer able. It also spells out the medical care the resident wants to receive and when to implement do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders.
You can see the version of this form from the California Probate Code here.
Some additional planning can make life easier for family members, so encourage your resident to discuss their funeral/memorial wishes. You can use your intake process to encourage those conversations among your residents and their loved ones.
Clarity for Your Team
End-of-life care planning makes it much easier for your team to do their jobs — and to rest easy knowing they’re complying with your residents’ wishes. When they can turn to the advance directive, they know which treatments the resident prefers, for example, and when to follow a DNR order.
Make sure the advance directive information your team needs to know is easily accessible to them. This way, they have clear guidance to help them best serve your residents.
Reduced Risk for Your Facility
Your facility has an obligation to take care of its residents. Advance directives and any other documentation you can gather about their end-of-life wishes allows you to best do that.
The benefits don’t stop there, either. When you have this guidance in place — and your team adheres to it — you significantly reduce your risk of liability concerns. In fact, taking steps to solidify end-of-life planning for all of your residents may even help to bring down the premium on your general liability coverage.
Ideally, this type of planning happens at intake. You never know when something sudden will happen with a resident and these clarifying documents will come into play. The earlier you can gather this guidance for your facility and your team, the better.
You may also have existing residents who haven’t yet enacted end-of-life care plans. Hosting a workshop on the topic may help you get them motivated to do this type of planning. Look for ways to initiative the necessary conversations with your residents and their families. Aim to have advance directive documentation for each of your residents.
As your facility takes steps to implement end-of-life care planning, work with your RCFE insurance agent to see if it can help you reduce your premiums. To get started, contact us at (805) 413-5668 today.
