An individual typically takes one of two paths to a skilled nursing facility: straight from the hospital or from home when they become too frail or sick to care for themselves.

In the first case, when the stay is for temporary doctor-ordered rehabilitation, the patient rarely has a say about which facility they’re transferred to. Instead, the decision is based upon bed availability, which facilities have connections to the hospital and the patient’s insurance plan.

In the second case, patients, most often seniors, do have a choice—if they do their planning and research.

Begin by figuring out which skilled-nursing facilities are covered by your Medicare plan. My parents, for example, have a Medicare HMO plan. With most HMO plans, you can go only to doctors, healthcare providers or hospitals on the plan’s list, except in an emergency.

Since my father will soon be living at a skilled-nursing facility and may need medical care there in the future, it’s important that he’s able to use his Medicare coverage plan to pay for treatment.

Next week we begin the heart-wrenching steps to place my father in a skilled-nursing facility in New Hampshire.

Parkinson’s disease has taken its toll on him and on my mother, his caregiver. I am thankful this day was so long in coming— over 20 years from the date of his diagnosis—but still too soon for all of us.

Over the past month my father has lost his ability to assist with his care, especially transfer r ing f rom bed to chair to commode and back. On a good day, or moment, my sister and mother can help him make the short trip. On a bad day, like a few weeks ago, my sister and my mother struggled for an hour to get my father—upon returning from getting his flu shot—out of the car and back into the house, even with the help of a third person.

In the best sense of the word, my mother is a martyr, having sacrificed her own pleasure and well-being for years to ensure my father lives with the greatest level of dignity and enjoyment.