If you are a resident of Texas with a loved one entering or already a resident of a senior or assisted living facility, it is important to know your rights as a caregiver and your aging loved one’s rights too. The Texas Health and Human Services locate individuals either as being paid staff or simply volunteers to become ombudsmen advocates for assisted living resident’s rights. As a senior living resident or the caregiver of that resident, you can reach out to their office to contact them about any care concerns in the state of Texas as a free service.
What are some of the things a Long-Term Care Ombudsman do to help you?
- You can reach out to them and speak to some of the concerns you might have around senior care for you or your loved one. They will listen to those concerns and provide you with insight around what next steps you can take.
- They can speak to your aging loved one about the rights that are afforded to them around care, facility regulations, and more.
- They can also offer up insight to local Texas state legislators to provide insight where regulations need to be created or modified to better serve residents of senior care facilities.
If you decide that you might want to become a Texas LTC Ombudsman, you can review all the requirements here.
You will need to pass a criminal history review along with a screening of any conflicts of interest that might arise. We did a quick review of the conflict-of-interest document and found a few highlights that might prevent people from becoming an Ombudsman.
- If you or an immediate family member were involved in the licensing of an assisted living facility in the past year.
- If you’ve provided services to a Long-Term Care (LTC) facility or been paid by an owner/operator of an LTC.
- Had any involvement around Medicaid managed care or Medicare decisions for anybody outside of immediate family members.
There are other obvious requirements you will see like receiving any gifts from LTC facilities or having any kind of ownership in LTC facilities. The Conflict of Interest document can be reviewed online so you can see if there is anything that might immediately disqualify you.
If you believe that your rights or a loved one’s rights are being infringed upon by their care facility, reach out to the Texas Ombudsman Office to find out your options.