Johnson City Nursing Homes Information

Nurses, nursing aids, physicians, specialists, social workers, therapists, non-medical personnel and nutritionists are responsible for meeting the specific needs of all nursing care residents.

Long-term care and short-term care are the two most general forms of skilled nursing care. In the Johnson City area, some facilities are able to admit patients for both types of care. Most facilities only focus on one of the two.

Short-term care patients need rehabilitative services after having an acute medical incident like a stroke, fall, surgery, heart attack or aneurism. About 75 percent of short-term nursing patients are in a nursing home due to doctor’s orders during a patient’s hospitalization. Under nursing care, patients are prescribed a personalized plan of recovery to help them restore their functioning and strength to pre-incident levels. They are given access to speech, respiratory, occupational and physical therapy and other forms of appropriate rehabilitation. The main objective of short-term care is to help patients improve their health to a place where they can receive further medical treatment from assisted living, in home or other less inclusive care options.

It is essential for future short-term patients to receive high quality hospital care that understands how to properly diagnose and treat a patient’s symptoms during the first few days after his or her medical event. Hospital care can affect a patient’s well-being during their recovery process. The best health care services in Johnson City, based on patients’ previous hospital experiences, are offered by Johnson City Medical Center and Franklin Woods Community Hospital.

Long-term care focuses on restoring or maintaining the health of patients with advanced, extensive and extended treatment needs. Long-term patients have illnesses and diagnoses, like dementia, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, cancer, kidney disease, Parkinson’s and hypertension, which are often in a deteriorating state when they are first admitted. Many long-term patients exhibit symptoms that demand complex and elaborate courses of action. All members of a facility’s team of professionals are involved with providing the requisite supplies, services and treatment to care for those needs. Doctors and nurses are available for 24-hour-a-day health monitoring and check-ups and are present to perform medical procedures like blood testing, medication adjustments, injections, intravenous therapy and wound care. Non-medical personnel assist patients with various custodial care needs. Social workers offer patients companionship and reassurance on a personal level.

Johnson City skilled nursing facilities bear monthly costs that fall slightly under the national average and slightly below the Tennessee median level. Private SNF Rooms have a monthly cost of $5,551, around $250 per month less than the state median. Private SNF rooms fall around $100 per month dollars below the state median, clocking in at $5,308 per month.

Nursing care is difficult for many seniors and their families to pay for. About 50 percent of nursing home residents do not qualify for supplemental government assistance via Medicaid or Medicare. Since traditional health insurance does not cover nursing facility stays, many patients have to privately fund the cost. While some have the foresight and ability to buy long-term care insurance policies, it is an expensive option that those on fixed incomes cannot afford. For others, ransacking their retirement savings or borrowing against their home is unavoidable. Patients with a prolonged need for nursing care may sometimes even burn through all their assets and eventually become eligible for Medicaid.