Support Services for Patients & Caregivers
Cottage Health offers a variety of services to help patients and families during treatment and recovery.
Coast Caregiver Resource Center
A Cottage Rehabilitation Hospital program serving Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties provides assistance to families and other unpaid caregivers of adults with brain impairments such as Alzheimer’s, stroke, Parkinson’s, ALS (Lou Gehrig’s), Huntington’s, brain tumor, brain injury due to trauma or infection, or dementia from any cause. CCRC is one of a network of Caregiver Resource Centers throughout California.
In San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties, respite care is also available for unpaid caregivers of older adults without cognitive impairment.
For more information on resources available through Coast Caregiver, please call (805) 569-8950, ext 1.
Medical Social Services
Social workers are available for Cottage Health patients and their families at no additional charge, offering counseling, support and referral assistance to help patients with injury or illness or to adjust to a disability. They may also offer support for other issues, such as accessing community service agencies or advance directives. Ask your nurse to help arrange these services or call the Medical Social Services Department at 805-324-9137.
Post-Hospital Planning
Care coordination—during and after hospitalization—begins at admission. Care management professionals, including case managers and medical social workers, may help you with resources about your illness, disease or injury; funding and/or benefit information or authorizations; post-hospitalization care and/or equipment; and safe discharge transition.
If you are a Medicare patient, and you believe you are being discharged too soon, you have the right to appeal to a quality improvement organization (QIO). QIOs are outside reviewers hired by Medicare to look at your case and decide whether you are ready to leave the hospital.
You may reach a QIO by calling 877-588-1123 (toll-free) or 855-887-6668 (TDD hearing impaired toll-free number). You may also call Cottage Health’s Care Management Department at 805-569-8306.
Medical Libraries
If you would like to learn more about your condition and potential treatments, Cottage Health offers a number of resources.
The SAGE Medical Library at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital has 14,000 bound periodicals and medical texts; 300 subscriptions to medical journals and access to many online medical databases.
The Cottage Rehabilitation Hospital Patient and Caregiver Library is available for patients and families to research a variety of health issues. Resources include Internet access, videos, books and other publications.
