Desperate for respite care, offered a bad solution
We needed help with respite care, and frankly were desperate for a place for my father-in-law. Villa Toscana was the only one out of four memory care facilities recommended by A Place for Mom that sent a nurse to pre-assess him and had a respite spot available that same night. I’m not sure if this was poor communication with the memory care places or just that VT was the only facility actually available, but out of a need for same-night placement we agreed to a 30 day respite care contract with Villa Toscana (their minimum stay duration, that should have been a warning indicator for us - other places offered a 14 day minimum). Long story short, we could not tolerate having my father-in-law stay at Villa Toscana for more than one week. This did give us the time to visit the three other spots recommended by a Place for Mom, but that one awful week cost us > $10k and was not a good experience for the family at all. My beef with a Place for Mom was that they even included Villa Toscana on their list of recommendations at all. If I could plan this over again, I would have evaluated and visited memory care facilities independently, long before we had a desperate need for one, and would have not put our trust to in a broker that gets paid for placements, no matter how bad. We are transferring my father-in-law to Ivy Park today, which not only is closer to our home, but also appears to have better staffing, better monitoring of residents who wander (so that they do not enter other residents rooms, use their bathrooms, take their things and attempt to get in bed with them), but also promises to have palatable nourishing food and daily engaging activities that aren’t routinely cancelled! Seriously, as with any large purchase, do your own research online and in person, and avoid having a broker give you a terrible suggestion when you are desperate for a place the same day!