Glossary

During the process, you are going to run into a lot of professional terms. We are here to clear things up for you.

Function levels / Medical status

• Independent elders – An elder who functions completely independently and takes care of himself without assistance.
• Infirm elders – An elder who has trouble functioning in daily life and requires assistance in getting dressed, bathing, going to the bathroom, and so forth.
• Elders requiring nursing care – An elder who is confined to a wheelchair or walks with the constant support of a caregiver, is incontinent and requires assistance in all daily activities. May be either of sound mind or suffering from dementia.
• Mentally infirm elders – An elder who walks independently or an infirm elder who has undergone a cognitive diagnosis and has been found to be suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.
• Mentally invalid elders – An independent/infirm elder who suffers from psychiatric problems, is balanced and poses no risk to himself or poses no risk to others.
• Elders in a complex nursing condition – An elder who suffers from a medical condition which requires complex medical care, such as stage-3 bedsores, artificial respiration or dialysis.  

Ministry of Health code

The Ministry of Health code is a full or partial funding by the state of admission to a nursing retirement home or a retirement home for the mentally infirm, for people who require financial aid.

There are many people who, during the search for a suitable retirement home for their spouse or elderly parents, meet difficulties, for the sole reason that they or their children do not have the ability, and the considerable financial means, involved in independently registering for, and funding, the stay at a retirement home. In such cases, the Ministry of Health provides an option of aid in funding the stay at a retirement home. The aid is conditional upon meeting various criteria, and is provided by means of receiving a code from the Ministry of Health.

Pre-code

In exceptional cases where one cannot wait until the code receipt process is completed and the move to the retirement home must be made urgently, we are in contact with several retirement homes which offer the option of a “pre-code”. This is a financial arrangement which exists until the code is received from the Ministry of Health, which, in urgent cases, takes no longer than several weeks. The elder and his family members will pay only a nominal amount, according to the family’s abilities, directly to the retirement home.

Committee for assistance in funding a retirement home

The committee is the entity which determines the level of assistance in funding the stay at the retirement home when the patient is defined as infirm. Documents attesting to the medical and mental condition of the elder, National Insurance documents of the elders and their spouses, as well as documents attesting to the financial condition of the elder and of his children must be presented to the committee.