Albany Nursing Homes Information

Residents are treated by a comprehensive network of caregivers, which includes registered and licensed physicians and nurses, certified nursing assistants, housekeepers, food service workers, non-medical personnel, therapists, social workers, recreational planners and counselors.

The cost of monthly residency at an Albany skilled nursing facility is below the Oregon state median. Private SNF rooms cost $7,270 per month, about $400 per month less than the median level. Semi-private SNF accommodations will run a monthly cost of $6,753, almost $100 per month beneath the state median.

Nursing homes offer a diverse set of services that often deviate from the two main categories of care, short-term and long-term care. Respite care and adult day health care are aimed at helping family caregiving arrangements. Adult day health care allows caretakers' patients to receive appropriate medical and social care while away at work. Respite care gives family caregivers time off by housing patients for short lengths of nursing care. This gives the family caregiving relationship a period of relief, so future care can be more effective.

Short-term nursing care is predominantly for patients who have been hospitalized for acute medical trauma like strokes, falls, aneurisms or cardiac arrest or have undergone surgery. While in the hospital, it is the prerogative of the patient’s doctor to decide that a short-term nursing stay is necessary. Quality hospital care and skilled doctors can ensure patients get a correct diagnosis and a proper start to their recovery during the first days after their medical event. In Albany, the best health care center, based on patients’ hospital experiences, is Samaritan Albany General Hospital. Short-term care has the objective of helping patients move to lower levels of care so they can get on with their lives as quickly as possible. Nursing professionals deliver individualized care that is often centered on sessions of occupational, respiratory, speech, auditory or physical therapy. Once patients near a level of health appropriate for release, discharge planners help patients weigh their options for area facilities that will help them reach a full recovery. The most popular choices after nursing care are assisted living facilities and in home care.

Long-term care facilities are for patients who have extensive nursing care needs due to serious medical conditions like diabetes mellitus, congestive heart failure, Fibromyalgia, paraplegia, Parkinson’s, dementia and emphysema. Newly admitted patients often have conditions that are in a state of decline. Personnel look to stabilize and eventually improve their conditions while caring for their everyday needs. Doctors and nurses assist patients in sticking to a personalized care program and administer medical procedures like ostomy care, ventilator management, injections, medication adjustment, enteral feeding tubes and wound care. Patients’ general hygiene and activities of daily living are completed with assistance from non-medical personnel. Social and mental welfare are supported through services like leisure, recreational, spiritual and self-care activities and counseling that focus on giving residents a high quality of life.

The average annual cost of nursing care ranges from $73,000 to $81,000. While the length of a nursing stay depends on the severity of a patient’s condition, extended periods of long-term care can be very damaging to a family’s financial standing. About 50 percent of all nursing care residents do not receive government benefits to aid in covering the high cost. They must find private ways of financing the high cost. Even a few months of nursing care can force families to crack open their retirement savings. Longer stays can deplete a family’s entire savings. Some have even lost their houses because they needed extended-term nursing care. If they run out of private means, patients will eventually become eligible to receive Medicaid benefits.