What having an Occupational Therapist on your side means for your family
Every advisor says personalized. It means the person evaluating your loved one's care needs, and judging whether a community can meet those needs, is a licensed and registered occupational therapist who has performed and documented evaluations for seniors for more than 24 years. It is a statement about who leads the work and what she brings to it.
Who leads
Summer Patel, MS, OTR/L. Licensed and Registered Occupational Therapist. 24+ years working with older adults in home care, rehab facilities, assisted living and memory care communities, in the rooms and wings of the kinds of communities families are now choosing between.
24+ Years Experience · Licensed and Registered Occupational Therapist · MS, Rehabilitation Science · Charlotte, NC
What that changes for you
She evaluates performance, not a pamphlet.
Bathroom and shower accessibility, staff size and culture, resident engagement, medication security, fall history and how the day actually goes. That is the OT lens, and it is the same lens a community's own nursing team will use at move in.
She knows what to ask after a community says yes.
When a sales director says "we have vacancy," she knows the next questions to ask for someone with your loved one's diagnosis.
She has worked on the inside.
She has seen residents arrive at a community that looked great but struggled to retain medical staff. The warning signs that look nuanced to families are flashing red lights to her.
She stays with you.
She tours with you, serves as your sounding board throughout your decision, then stays through the move and regularly checks in.
What this is not
- Not medical advice, a diagnosis, or a treatment plan. Safe Haven does not provide financial advice, and the CareFit assessment is not a full, in person OT evaluation.
- Not a replacement for your loved one's physicians or the hospital's attending therapy team. Safe Haven works alongside them.
- Not a guarantee of outcome, availability or price. The fits presented are Safe Haven's professional judgment about care quality to inform a family's decision, not replace it.
Three questions to ask any senior living advisor
Ask these of anyone who offers to help, including us.
- Who will evaluate my loved one's needs, and what license do they hold? A Certified Senior Advisor designation is a course and an exam. A licensed therapist or nurse holds a graduate clinical degree, a state board license, a defined scope of practice and years of patient care. Summer's is a Master of Science in Rehabilitation Science.
- Have you worked inside a community, delivering care, or only toured it? Touring tells you what a building looks like. Working in one tells you what the care looks like at 2 am.
- What communities are you not presenting? Referral fees paid by community living facilities can influence what's presented more than the quality of care. We pride ourselves on the families that have worked with vendors and communities we presented that are out of our network. The referral fees from the work we do allow us to support families whose best option may be a state or federally funded community.
Talk with the Occupational Therapist, not a call center.
Thirty minutes with Summer and you will know what level of care makes sense to explore and what the next step looks like.