Blog ⋆ Page 3 of 214 ⋆ Cathy Cress

Are You Marketing Private Care Management to The Concierge Family- Who Can Afford You?

June 29, 2017

Who is Your Market in an Aging Life or geriatric care management business? The Rich and Famous people who are your concierge clients. This is why you need to serve that top 10%. Demand and not need determines the success of an eldercare business like aging life or geriatric care manager business. This fundamental fact of life must be taken into consideration when developing a business plan for a for-profit, fee-based, Geriatric care management business.

The target market for a private geriatric care management business is not the 65 million families who need those concierge care management services, but the much smaller subset of those families who can afford to hire a GCM or aging life care manager, are willing to pay for the services that GCMs and can actually find their way to you.

This subset really represents the top 10% of the economic spectrum and more precisely the top 1% who actually held onto its share of national wealth in the 2008 economic crisis, and may have even gained a bit.

Meanwhile, the share of national wealth held by the bottom 90% fell to 25% after the Wall St and Housing collapse and these elders are tragically not the market for geriatric care managers because they cannot afford the service.

Whether you are a nurse care manager, geriatric social worker, nurse advocate, geriatric care manager , aging life care manager , any of the alphabet soup of care management names, if you have a private geriatric care management business, you can only make money and thrive as a business by marketing selling and signing up the top 10% edder client.

Bob OToole MA ,long time geriatric care manager,wrote a highly researched chapter in the latest edition of Handbook of Geriatric Care Management 4th edition Private Revenue Sources for the Fee-Based Care Manager- Need Vs Demand in the Elder Care Market which show aging life and geriatric care manager why you need these 10% elders and their Families as customers.

Need To Serve More Aging Concierge Clients ? – Free Webinar to Learn How

June 26, 2017

If you start- up an aging life or geriatric care management business your clients are Concierge Clients . Why??

Demand and not need determines the success of an elder-care business . This fundamental fact of life must be taken into consideration when developing a business plan for a for-profit, fee-based, elder-care business.

The target market for such a for- profit Aging Life or geriatric care management business is not the 65 million families who need geriatric care management services.

Geriatric Care Manager, Bob O’Toole , in his chapter of the Handbook of Geriatric Care Management, ” Private Revenue Sources for the Fee Based Care Manager” tells us the much smaller subset of upper 10% concierge families who can afford to hire a geriatric care manager , are willing to pay for the services that a geriatric care manager and other for-profit, elder-care enterprises provide, and can actually find their way to the fee-based provider.

Find out How to Find Those Concierge Customers

Join me for my free Webinar How to Make a Profit Serving the Older Concierge Clients, August 23, 2017 and learn how to transform your GCM /Aging Life entrepreneurial dream into a profitable reality with 5 key marketing steps

Reach this target audience
Design products that exactly meet their needs
Obtain adult children’s buy-in
Use words that will make them choose you
Get the contract signed with ease

Learn more, get the details

Trumpcare Medicaid Cuts Will Force Seniors Out of Nursing Home- New York Times

June 25, 2017

New York Times Today: Seniors all over the US many of whom were middle class worked all their lives but have spent down their retirement, will lose their federal safety net in Medicaid if the ACA is defeated in the Senate by the Republican Senate

ORANGE, Va. — Alice Jacobs, 90, once owned a factory and horses. She has raised four children and buried two husbands.

But years in an assisted living center drained her savings, and now she relies on Medicaid to pay for her care at Dogwood Village, a nonprofit, county-owned nursing home here.

“You think you’ve got enough money to last all your life, and here I am,” Ms. Jacobs said.

Medicaid pays for most of the 1.4 million people in nursing homes, like Ms. Jacobs. It covers 20 percent of all Americans and 40 percent of poor adults.

On Thursday, Senate Republicans joined their House colleagues in proposing steep cuts to Medicaid, part of the effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Conservatives hope to roll back what they see as an expanding and costly entitlement. But little has been said about what would happen to older Americans in nursing homes if the cuts took effect.

ORANGE, Va. — Alice Jacobs, 90, once owned a factory and horses. She has raised four children and buried two husbands.

But years in an assisted living center drained her savings, and now she relies on Medicaid to pay for her care at Dogwood Village, a nonprofit, county-owned nursing home here.

“You think you’ve got enough money to last all your life, and here I am,” Ms. Jacobs said.

Medicaid pays for most of the 1.4 million people in nursing homes, like Ms. Jacobs. It covers 20 percent of all Americans and 40 percent of poor adults.

Can a Geriatric Care Manager or Social Worker Be a Midwife for a Good Death ?

June 24, 2017

Atul Gawande’s breakthrough book, Being Mortal tells us the ultimate goal, after all, is not a good death but a good life to the very end. Elizabeth Kubla- Ross tells us the death is really in parts called five stages.

A Care Manager or Geriatric Social worker can be a midwife through these five stages to a good death, reaching towards joining the ultimate midwife team, hospice.

The Acceptance phase of death occurs when people finally are able to cope with the mental, social, physical, religious and financial effects of their disease, a heavy load In the disease process and acceptance process, this is the period of time after a medical procedure such as chemotherapy, radiation or surgery. The client’s response to treatment is being monitored. Recovery does not always mean remission, but instead, it is the ability to accept and deal with the struggles of their illness.

A Story About the acceptance phase Mr. Murphy

William accepted his coming death while in the hospital. He had 4 physicians’ who were treating him aggressively for renal failure with dialysis. He was 93 and refused to sign a DNR. The doctors discovered what they thought might be a tumor. However, they were afraid the biopsy procedure would be too radical for his age. So they kept up the dialysis.

The care manager appealed to the nurses for help when the physicians would not intervene. A nun appeared – it was a Catholic hospital- and said, ” the nurses called me to go around this problem. Talk to the head Dr. about ordering palliative care.” The Care Manager did.

Sure enough, after the care manager talked to him that physician ordered palliative care. Then one by one one the 4 physicians came to Bill’s bedside and talked softly, asking him to accept that he may have cancer and the biopsy could not be done. The last, a gentle urologist, held his hand and talked of letting go and accepting he would die. He agreed to stop the dialysis.

Bill accepted his death reluctantly wanted to live to watch his 3 great grandchildren grow. The urologist ordered palliative care and Bill changed the DNR with the help of his son. Hospice met with the family and all agreed to move William to the son’s home with 24-hour care and hospice to die.

Gwendolyn LAZO Harris MA, CT, Seniors at Home, San Francisco and Diane LeVan MA both highly expert care managers, created a seminal chapter “Palliative Care and End of Life Care Manager ” in my book Care Manager’s Working With the Aging Family

How Can a Care Manager Bring Joy to a Dying Client ?

June 22, 2017

A care manager can bring joy in the terminal phase of dying and give a good life to the very end.Here is a wonderful example

Bill died at the home of his son after he had accepted that he was to die of liver failure. After coming to terms with his death, he and his family, sons, and grandchildren were able to say the goodbyes and offer the unconditional love that they had been fearful to express before his acceptance. A feeling of light joy permeated his room, a family room overlooking the garden, where his hospital bed was set up. Great grandchildren brought pictures, marveled at “grandpa grandpa “ high up in a hospital bed.

His son put a headphone with a mike on and William could hear and speak, as he had not in years. It was like the wonderful film and concept Alive Inside. Hearing was a gift that gave him such joy. in his last weeks of life.

His 24-hour caregivers were gifted loving care providers from a GCM agency Livhome .The 24-hour shifts included a nurse of 18 years from Central America and a man finishing his Ph.D. from the Congo. They cared for him with great warmth, so his family could just be his family, relaxing in their love and surrounding him, as if in a circle, that swirled with 4 generations, going every which way while he watched, really loved and melted into his last stage. They ate meals, chitchatted and welcomed new family coming in to see William, as he remained in the center in his hospital bed, the fulcrum of the gathering.

The geriatric care manager, GCM Mary Brennan, from Livhome , a seasoned ,powerful and so kind LCSW, adjusted here and there, with care providers, family needs, Bill’s needs and followed the guidance of Hospice, who were slowly increasing the pain meds, and supporting his heath and medical care needs in death. The geriatric care management agency worked as a partner supplying 24 care and support for the family.

Bill was able to have again, a magical care provider from Livhome, who had been with him for almost two years and was so at the end.

You are only as strong as your weakest link- those are the care providers. These people were the raft that floated Bill up while the family, offered love and hospice provided medical and end of life support. Together they buoyed Bill into his last stage of dying, knowing that his family was the fabric of every step he took toward forward towards death. They gave him that good life till the very end.

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