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What worked for my seniors was making sure of access to care by having original Medicare, Parts A&B and a good supplement. This enabled home health care on an ongoing basis to work with top doctors and hospitals when care was needed.

My experience with specialist was excellent.

Being willing to travel for care was important when local doctors didn’t have the expertise to diagnose accurately or to receive proper testing or hospital support.
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Reply to 97yroldmom
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My parents had great help from Home Health through Original Medicare. This to check vitals, manage meds, provide a bather and physical therapy. It’s also helpful for blood draws and X-rays, flu shots, wound care which keeps mom from having to take dad in for these things.
A housekeeper might be easier to find than a hands on caregiver. The housekeeper can be a tremendous help to your mom so she can spend her time with your dad. Plus when you go to visit you aren’t trying to do all the chores for mom while you are there.

I drove three hours one way weekly to bring my mom supplies and clean her home and do her laundry. I brought food I had prepared at home. She had a restricted diet.
I finally found a housekeeper towards the end. it was a great help.
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Reply to 97yroldmom
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Start with locating the nearest hospital. Then, locate the nearest hospital that can handle strokes and heart attacks -you want to be less than 1 hour from one of this type. If are are farther from this type of hospital, seriously consider moving closer.

Then, locate nearest skilled nursing facilities. In rural areas, you probably will have a hard time getting caregivers into the home, but adult day programs, respite, and rehab in local snf may be available.
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Reply to Taarna
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It's very difficult! I wouldn't recommend it!
Hard2Help, I read your follow up response, and see that your parents are already in such a situation.
I, too am the sole caregiver for my husband. We are both 63, and I have been doing this for 10 years. It has taken a tremendous toll on my health. We are in a small outlying community, about 20 to 30 miles outside a major metropolis, Phoenix. It has been challenging trying to find caregivers who are willing to come to our home. And the added difficulty of my husband scares off some of the qualified caregivers nearby. Fortunately, we do have doctor's offices and a band new hospital fairly close.
As Isthisrealyreal points out, it can be challenging to find help anywhere you live.
The needs of our aging boomer generation exceed the availability of qualified caregivers and medical professionals. I feel as though I am going to be caring for my husband until it kills me. His sons plan to place him in a skilled nursing facility in that event. So, I just take it day by day and do my best to get through each day.
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Reply to CaringWifeAZ
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ConstanceS Apr 20, 2025
why not put him in now? Sounds like the sons prefer he kill you off with the caretaking first how is that fair to you?
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My mother had her PCP and social worker besides my POA to help her in a board-and-care in SSF CA that wasn't even a desert but felt like it for her. She always asked me to take her home when no longer could care for herself. And my mom did not like doctors and hated the SSF care home staff besides her running out of her resources for her care at age 93.

My brother up in OR moved her to a retirement care residence near his location for Mom's better humane treatment and hired an ombudsman counseling for her. Mom even stayed in her same room for her different levels of care until she passed away in 2014 at age 95.
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Reply to Patathome01
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Call the county.
Call the nearest hospital.
It is challenging now and will only get worse with our current government.
Call attorney(s) that specialize in elder care.

The first step is to call / do your research and ask for referrals.

You might want to tell us more about your specific situation.
I do not know if you are asking for medical care or caregivers.

Gena / Touch Matters
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Reply to TouchMatters
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I live rural and took care of my parents but, I don't live in a medical desert.
My house is 10 minutes from the local hospital and 2 hours from the big city. If need be, I can go to where I need and would never give up the rural life.

Specialists involved long drives, invasive and painful test and treatments. Eventually, we found not going to the specialists ended up in a better quality of life.
Stopping all the tests to look for hidden horrors and accepting life has a death sentence. Probably gave them a couple of more years each, and those were happier years.
Extending the slow death (instead of extending life) had no appeal. So, we stopped going and just stuck with the local GP. for what was best for quality of life.
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Reply to Cashew
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ElizabethAR37 Apr 19, 2025
Agree. I've decided not to undergo "hidden horrors" medical testing, nor would I accept painful, invasive treatments that offer little chance of improving whatever my ailment may be. I do not go to my PCP often and have selectively declined referrals to specialists. (They are scheduled months out anyway.) At 88 my outlook is more "palliative". The problem can be a healthcare system that is oriented towards heroics and preservation of life at all costs. When life becomes existence, to the extent I can, I will opt to make my Final Exit.
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Your parents are going to need to move where the resources are. Sometimes remaining in your home is not logical anymore.
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Reply to JoAnn29
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Start with local urgent care facilities.
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Reply to Dawn88
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You know, when we retired two decades ago we found the best, most beautiful little town and the best piece of land out in nature, about 40 miles from Yosemite. And we cleared and built a lovely little glass cabin and watches the fox and deer play. We thought to retire there.
The truth is that it became clear that the best place to retire, and a choice we still had for permanent placement, was "big city" access both for transportation, aging care and medical.

It has been a long long time that our rural areas have been becoming medical deserts as you call them. My mom was alive two decades ago and it was already happening in her state of Missouri; we helped my parents make last move to Kansas City area for that very reason.

I don't have an answer. I wish I did. Aging ANYWHERE is not for sissies. Some honestly want little care, and are ready to go without much "medical fighting warriors" at their side. But we aren't always given the CHOICE to stay or go. We are sometimes caught inbetween, and the medical deserts are nowhere to do that.

We enjoyed our little cabin while we could still weedwhip an acre of it fenced for the dogs to play, still enjoy felling a tree and chopping fire wood. When that was over we sold it to a ranger. We will be forever grateful for that time together there; but our original idea was a bad one.
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Reply to AlvaDeer
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Eldee123 Apr 20, 2025
As long as you had a good time there it was a great idea. No one knows the future. You just outlived the time it was feasible and had to move on to a new adventure. My own parents moved to the mountains and are in a situation of poor health and dementia and refuse to move or allow help, not that it’s available anyhow. I am 2 hours away in the city. At least you were brave enough to realize a change had to be made. I wish my parents were so rational as it’s made my life hell to have to deal with their choices.
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You could look into telehealth visits.
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Reply to MG8522
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Gosh, I live in a city with a million plus people and we can NOT find a PCP after ours moved to Colorado.

There is a tremendous shortage of people entering the care trades and the mandatory vaccine fiasco ran a tremendous amount of qualified professionals from the field.

I just keep calling around and use urgent care or the ER if we need medical assistance.

If you are referring to a caregiver, have you checked with local churches or volunteer programs? They might have resources or know where you can find this service.
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Reply to Isthisrealyreal
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CaringWifeAZ Apr 20, 2025
We too just lost my husband's PCP. He moved to Iowa.
The medical group that he worked for doesn't have another provider to replace him! That is, someone to make house calls.

I am not putting my husband in the car and taking him to a doctor's office!
He takes his seatbelt off and opens the car door, yelling for help the whole ride, and once there, waiting an hour in the waiting area, he yells, hits me, and tries to slide out of his wheelchair onto the floor for attention! It's like having a 180 pound toddler!

Unless an emergency arises that warrants calling 911 for an ambulance for transport to the hospital, he's going to have to die in his bed at home.
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Did you just move to a rural desert, and what planning went into such a move? Have you looked online for medical care where you are?
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Reply to lealonnie1
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Hard2Help Apr 7, 2025
The care is for my father. My parents live in a medical desert and I can see the toll caregiving is starting to take on my mom. They're not going to leave their hometown so we take turns driving out to help. Sooner, rather than later, they're going to need assistance so we're just trying to be proactive in finding the help that they will need. And yes, we've searched online and tapped into as many resources as we can find. Finding suitable resources in their area is proving to be a challenge, hence the question.
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