For families in Nassau or Suffolk County, the Office for the Aging in your parent's home county is a good first call - Nassau County Office for the Aging at 516-227-8900, or Suffolk County Office for the Aging at 631-853-8200. Both function as the local NY Connects access point, a free service that helps families understand care options, eligibility, and next steps after a hospital event, without any cost or obligation.
How families here handle this
A fall serious enough to require hospitalization is one of the most common moments a family first starts seriously researching senior care, often with no advance planning in place and a hospital discharge planner asking for decisions within days. The county Office for the Aging in whichever county your parent lives, Nassau or Suffolk, serves as the local NY Connects point of contact, a statewide, no-cost information and assistance service designed exactly for this kind of moment: helping families understand what options exist, including home care, rehab, assisted living, and Medicaid pathways, before committing to whatever the hospital discharge planner first proposes. Because the discharge planner's job is to move the patient out of the hospital bed, not necessarily to lay out every long-term option, an independent call to NY Connects can surface choices, like the NHTD waiver or MLTC-coordinated home care, that might not otherwise come up in that conversation.
Related questions
- My father was just diagnosed with dementia - what should we be planning for on Long Island?
- I'm exhausted from caring for my spouse or parent - what support exists for caregivers on Long Island?
- We're running out of money to pay privately for my parent's care - what are our options?
- How do we know it's actually time to move my parent out of their home?
