Resources · Monument, CO

Home care after a hospital stay in Monument and the Tri-Lakes

The drive from the Tri-Lakes to a hospital bed is short in miles and long in everything else. The nearest large emergency department to Monument is UCHealth Memorial Hospital North, down I-25 at 4050 Briargate Parkway, and its emergency department never closes. When a family comes home from there, they arrive with a folder of paperwork, a bag of new instructions, and a person who was sick yesterday and is supposed to be better today. That gap is where home care lives.

The Monument version of that gap has a shape. Emergency care is a drive down the interstate and there is no bus, so the ride to the pharmacy or the follow-up appointment has to be booked rather than hopped on. Tri-Lakes Cares on North Jefferson Street will hand out one emergency grocery bag with no enrollment, and enrolled households shop there weekly. Silver Key will put a person and a van on the schedule. And on the ridge itself, the air is different, the snow is different, and the smoke days are real.

We are Colorado CareAssist: family-owned, non-medical home care, and the caregivers we place in Monument homes are trained for dementia and matched on skills and personality. The rate here is $40 an hour, three hours minimum per visit, and a live-in day is $650 flat, with no long-term contract to break. We are a VA Community Care Network provider, and we help families work out their long-term care insurance. Call (303) 757-1777 for a free twenty-minute call, then a free assessment in the home or by video, with nothing to sign and no obligation to go further.

The drive to Briargate and back

A discharge from Memorial North leaves a family with two addresses in their head and one folder in their hand. The other UCHealth campus downtown, Memorial Central at 1400 E. Boulder Street, is the closer match for certain specialties. Everything a Monument family needs in a hurry is a car ride down the interstate, which is exactly why the first week home matters so much.

Ask for the discharge folder before you leave the building, and read it at the kitchen table rather than in the parking lot. It holds the medication list, the follow-up dates and the restrictions, and the restrictions are the part people skip. What a person is allowed to climb, lift, cook or bathe alone for the next several weeks is written down, and a paid caregiver's first job is to read that list with the family instead of guessing from memory.

Rides, when the follow-up appointments stack up

A first week home usually holds two or three appointments, and the follow-up schedule outlasts the good days. Silver Key books rides to medical appointments and to shopping through its Tri-Lakes senior center at (719) 884-2300, and the county's transportation listing names Reserve and Ride, a door-through-door and ADA-accessible service. Envida Moves, (719) 633-4677 at 5660 N Academy Boulevard in Colorado Springs, coordinates rides across El Paso and Teller counties alongside the Silver Key programs.

For the person who cannot yet manage stairs or a long car ride, keep the medical appointments together. The Pikes Peak Area Agency on Aging, with Senior Information and Assistance at (719) 471-2096, lists Monument among the communities it serves and names transportation among the free Older Americans Act services available to adults over 60. One number, asked before the first appointment, can move a whole week off the family's plate.

Food, and the medicine that comes with it

Tri-Lakes Cares runs a Market and Pantry on North Jefferson Street in Monument, and the rule there is generous: one emergency grocery bag, no enrollment form, no questions. Enrolled households shop weekly for produce, dairy, meats and pantry staples. For a family that has just come home from the hospital with a new medication schedule and a smaller appetite, that is a real service in the first week rather than a support later on.

The grocery side of the valley is a short drive in every direction. King Soopers on Baptist Road carries a pharmacy as well as a store, and its grocery-delivery page says SNAP EBT is accepted at checkout, with digital coupon clipping and fuel points on the same account. The community grocery list also puts Safeway on Highway 105, Natural Grocers on Baptist Road and the Walmart Supercenter out on Jackson Creek Parkway in Monument, and Calvert's Mini Market in Palmer Lake for the smaller run. Pharmacy hours shift, so check them before you send anyone.

The first paid week, and what it is for

Paid home care after a hospital stay is not the same thing as the hospital's staff, and it is worth being clear about that. We do not do medical care. We are non-medical, and what we do is the ordinary work of a day that has been made harder than usual: the shower, the meals, the walk to the bathroom, the pill box filled on a schedule, the company at eleven when the house gets quiet.

Our rate in Monument is $40 an hour with a three-hour minimum per visit, and a live-in day is $650 flat. There is no long-term contract, so a family can try a week and change its mind. It is also the case that the first week is when the details are hardest and the payoff is clearest, which is a good reason to book the assessment before the second week starts.

When the ground outside is the hard part

The Palmer Divide runs at 7,300 feet, and the master plan for the region describes summers cooler and winters colder than Denver or Colorado Springs, with more rain and snow than either. A driveway on the north side of Monument takes longer to clear, a January errand is a different undertaking than a July one, and a person who was unsteady in the hospital is not going to be steady on an iced walkway in February.

That is a planning question rather than a medical one. Ask what the last month of the person's driving actually looked like. Ask whether the person can get to the mailbox and back. Ask what happens when the caretaker is sick and the second person in the house cannot do the lifting. Each of those answers tells you more about how many hours a week are really needed than any assessment form will.

The month after the folder

Some stays are followed by a clean recovery at home. Others are followed by a different kind of need, and the honest moment to talk about it is early. Rocky Mountain PACE, (719) 314-2327 with a TTY line at (800) 659-2656, coordinates medical care and runs day centers with activities, meals and transportation for people 55 and older who qualify for nursing-home level of care, from sites in Colorado Springs including one on Explorer Drive.

There are also local supports that do not require a hospital to recommend them. The Yellow Book lists Silver Key's senior assistance and Meals on Wheels for the days when the kitchen is not in use. A recovering body often wants company before it wants a service, and both of those supply one.

Put it on paper this week

Before the next appointment, write down four things: the medication list with times, the follow-up dates, the activities the doctor restricted, and the phone number of the person who answers at home. Then put the assessment on the calendar. We will come to the house or meet by video, at no cost and with no obligation, and the conversation is mostly about the difference between how the week looks now and how you want it to look in a month.

Families with long-term care insurance can bring the policy to that conversation and we will go through it with them. Veterans can ask about the VA Community Care Network, which we are part of. And if the money is what is holding the appointment up, say so, because there are county programs and benefits in this region that most families never apply for and that are still there when they need them. Call (303) 757-1777 and ask for the twenty-minute version. It costs nothing to start there.

Local resources in Monument

The closest large emergency department to the Tri-Lakes is UCHealth Memorial Hospital North, 4050 Briargate Parkway, Colorado Springs (719-364-5000), with emergency care open all day, every day. Source
UCHealth Memorial Hospital Central is at 1400 E. Boulder Street, Colorado Springs. Source
Bustang's I-25 South Line stops at the Monument Park-n-Ride at CO-105 and I-25, Exit 161, running weekday and weekend service between the Colorado Springs Downtown Terminal at 127 E Kiowa St and Denver stops including Union Station; schedules change, so check the current one. Source
Silver Key books rides to medical appointments and shopping through its Tri-Lakes senior center at (719) 884-2300, and the Yellow Book lists Reserve and Ride as door-through-door, ADA-accessible transportation. Source
Envida Moves, (719) 633-4677 at 5660 N Academy Blvd, Colorado Springs, coordinates rides across El Paso and Teller counties alongside Silver Key and the Tri-Lakes senior services. Source
The Pikes Peak AAA lists Monument among the communities it serves, with Senior Information and Assistance at (719) 471-2096, and names transportation among the free Older Americans Act services available to adults over 60. Source
Tri-Lakes Cares runs a Market and Pantry on North Jefferson Street in Monument where anyone can receive one emergency grocery bag with no enrollment, while enrolled households shop weekly for produce, dairy, meats and pantry staples. Source
King Soopers on Baptist Road in Monument carries a pharmacy, and its grocery-delivery page states that SNAP EBT is accepted at checkout alongside digital coupon clipping and fuel points. Source
The Tri-Lakes grocery list places Safeway on Highway 105, Natural Grocers on Baptist Road and the Walmart Supercenter on Jackson Creek Parkway in Monument, with Calvert's Mini Market in Palmer Lake. Source
The Tri-Lakes sits on the Palmer Divide at 7,300 feet, where the master plan describes cooler summers and colder winters than Denver or Colorado Springs, with more rain and snow than either. Source
Rocky Mountain PACE coordinates medical care, day centers with activities, meals and transportation for people 55 and older who qualify for nursing-home level of care; it is reached at (719) 314-2327 with a TTY line at (800) 659-2656, from Colorado Springs sites including 8595 Explorer Dr. Source
The Yellow Book's senior-services listings include Silver Key's Connections Cafe, Meals on Wheels, Reserve and Ride and senior assistance. Source

Families in Monument can start with a free in-home assessment, or read about home care in Monument.