The Family Field Guide to Choosing Treatment

Part 1 — Before you call anyone

• The ownership lookup worksheet. The public databases in order, what to record at each step, and how to tell a local business from a portfolio brand.
• The badge verification sheet. Where to independently confirm the state license, the accreditation, and the certification — and how to check they cover the specific program being proposed.
• The name-collision check. A two-minute routine that stops you researching the wrong company. This happens constantly and it is the easiest error in the process.

Part 2 — The calls

• The phone script. Opening questions that establish who you are actually speaking to, in order, with what to write down.
• All 41 vetting questions, organized by call — first contact, clinical, financial, pre-admission — each with what a good answer sounds like and what a bad one sounds like.
• The comparison scoring sheet. Three facilities side by side on one page, so the decision is made on paper rather than from memory at midnight.
• The call log. Dates, names, reference numbers. This is the document that wins the later disagreement about what was said.

Part 3 — Money and insurance

• The pre-authorization checklist. What to confirm in writing before admission, and the exact wording to ask for it in.
• The six-dimension worksheet. How medical necessity is actually assessed, and what you know about the home environment that belongs in the record and usually isn't.
• Two appeal letter templates. One internal appeal built around the six dimensions; one written request for the plan's parity comparative analysis. Both adaptable, both plain English.

Part 4 — The handoff

• The step-down planning worksheet — the questions to settle before admission rather than during discharge.
• The day-after-discharge plan, because the transition out is the highest-risk moment and it is almost never planned properly.