Aging Archives ⋆ Page 3 of 218 ⋆ Cathy Cress

Aging Life or Care Management Intakes- Do You Know How to Make the Sale?

July 23, 2018

Do you make this fatal and costly mistake with a client inquiry? When you get a request for information, over the phone, do you drive to the client’s home to do the intake- without first getting a deposit and contract first ? How does this break your bank balance?

Aging Life care manager Sally Sunshine received an inquiry call and drove an hour to see the client. After spending two hours explaining her services, doing a geriatric assessment then asking for a deposit and signed contract the older gentleman said he could not afford her services and would not sign the contract at that time. The Aging Life care manager came up empty-handed.

How do you avoid traveling two hours, spending 3 or more hours with a client and not getting the case or making the sale?

You do the inquiry over the phone with a complimentary consultation, and then make the sale and ask for the contract and the deposit. You do not drive to the client’s home without first getting a signed contract deposit – first.

Here’s how

You do a two-call intake. The first inquiry call to your agency taken by a highly experienced staff in your office. That person must clearly understand the client problem, prompting the call to your agency and crucially finding out how it impacts both the client and the care providers.

They then offer an appointment to do a complimentary consultation for 30 minutes scheduled within 24 hours, made for the agency director.

What To Do in the Complementary Consultation

Do briefly outline how you are an expert at solving the problems (moving, keeping at home, Alzheimer’s wandering)
Do a mini care plan showing exactly how you would solve the client ‘sand care providers problem outlined in the first inquiry call
Do make the sale by asking the client if they are ready to move forward with a contract and deposit
If they say yes send out a contract through Adobe and get a deposit through Pay Pal.

Want to make serve the GCM market that will make you a profitable business? Join me for my free webinar, “Start and Run a Profitable Geriatric Care Business” on August 22. Learn how to transform your GCM entrepreneurial dream into a money-making business with 5 profit driven steps

Learn these 5 Critical Steps to Financial success from Cathy Cress, MSW, author of the book known as the bible of geriatric care management. Learn how to transform your GCM entrepreneurial idea into a profitable reality before you even open your doors.

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What are the 7 Steps to a Successful Concierge Client Inquiry Call ?

July 21, 2018

Intake is the most critical point in opening or losing a case. A successful intake means increasing your aging life or geriatric care management business. Over the Holidays you will get many desperate calls from adult children visiting their family and discovering- unwrapped gifts, a disheveled Mom – trouble they may not have known about if they lived long distance or just saw Mom infrequently.Here are steps to success over the holiday intake or any inquiry
1. You must assure the caller that your geriatric care management services can be counted on to thoroughly assess the elderly person’s and family caregiver’s situation at the intake, determine the level of care and level of GCM monitoring to sell your services.
2. You sell these services through convincing the caller that you offer highly personalized and compassionate approach to the family and older client. This breaks down to gaining client and family trust that your GCM services are the very best path leading them the care they desperately need- led by a professional guide they can count on.
3. You persuade them that they will get unbeatable customer appreciation, you will exceed their customer expectations, ensure the quality of life for the older client and offer a concierge driven service.
4. You explain how your hands on professional staff can make families relieved and happy because they understand they save precious time and overwhelming stress by using professional GCM’s.
5. You show them you can access all community services and resource options they could not find alone and are now available to them through your services.
6. In this one sometimes short call, you show potential new clients how your concierge care management service will solve their problems through -you the GCM being there for them every step of the way.
7. You persuade them that by scheduling the next step, a free complimentary consultation call, you will help them make sound decisions based on reality and assessment.

The GCM sells all of this through a free complimentary consultation done by a compassionate and highly skilled professional the director of the agency.

Want to make serve the GCM market that will make you a profitable business? Join me for my free webinar, “Start and Run a Profitable Geriatric Care Business” on August 22. Learn how to transform your GCM entrepreneurial dream into a money-making business with 5 profit driven steps

Learn these 5 Critical Steps to Financial success from Cathy Cress, MSW, author of the book known as the bible of geriatric care management. Learn how to transform your GCM entrepreneurial idea into a profitable reality before you even open your doors. Sign Up For My Free Webinar

What are 7 Spiritual Quality Of Life Activities for Elders?

July 20, 2018

Leonie Nowitz, a geriatric care manager who has a deep interest in spirituality and writes about it often, once told me to look at spirituality as a question ” What is this all about”. As we age this question becomes primal, as we face death coming at a rapid pace. We wonder- do I go to heaven, to hell, or just energy or dust. Will I meet angels- my wife in heaven.?

Ms. Nowitz said that when you define religion, look at it as a filing cabinet with each drawer is a religion with it’s answer to spirituality ” “What Is this all About”. There is one for Jews, Protestants, Hindu’s Muslims, Quakers, The Environment- all religions and belief systems.

One assessment care managers can do is a Quality of Life assessment to find out where joy can be found again. If spirituality is something that would increase an elders quality of life, here are some activities that you may suggest to an older client or their family.

Spiritual Quality of Life Activities

If an older person appears isolated and is unable to attend their place a worship because of not driving or disability, and they wish to still join a congregation, contact the head of the religious group and ask if members could transport him or if they have a van service or arrange for members to transport them to services. If they cannot get out ask if the spiritual leader or congregation members would make home visits.
If an older person is not now a part of a religious group but what once was and has some interest in returning, contact the head of the religious group and ask him/her to make a home visit and the care manager follow-up with transportation arrangements if yes.
If an older client has had a recent close relative or friend die and wishes to return to a spiritual group she knew before, connect them, with the congregation they are familiar with for solace or grieving.
If an older person moves to a new area and is part of a religious group connect them to the same religion and place of worship in the new town and arrange transportation and a new member to greet them
If an older person has dementia if possible reconnect him her with his spiritual background through familiar prayer, music etc.
If an elder has dementia and can attend services without being disruptive, arrange for a caregiver to take them as they can still be drawn in by the ” Smells and Bells’
If you have a homebound client who wishes to return to a religious group, reconnect them by arranging, in their, spiritual music, religious icons (a rosary or image, for example), readings from a sacred text, watching a service on television, listening to one on the radio or via computer.

How to Hire Geriatric Care Manager Who Can to Bill their Client Time

July 19, 2018

Learn how to increase your care management billing by hiring care managers who feel comfortable when billing clients. The door to profit is opened by hiring care managers who have no ethical dilemma about billing. You go through that door by employing care managers who are happy to bill clients and do not have to be trained, coaxed or even counseled to bill clients for their billable time.

Nurses, social workers, and health professional who are employed in a for-profit aging life or geriatric care management agencies rarely feel good about billing clients. They were educated to serve people not bill them. They entered health professions where you gave things away did not charge them money. They often feel slimy asking for money even though they started a business and their agency lifeblood in billing customers so they can make payroll and grow their business. More than that, 75% of these health professionals are women and it is their DNA to give things away or the human race would not survive. But a care management agency is not a baby it is a business and you feed it and nurture it with money.

Watch this video to understand what you must do to screen candidates who can bill, train new hire care managers so they understand your billing expectations of 85%, coach them to bill 85% of their time through weekly billing reports and understanding what is client time that is billable and what is non-billable. Understand what else you can do to increase your profit through billing reports, incentives to case managers and an easy to use billing software

Stop -Before Starting Geriatric Care Management Business – Do a Competition Survey

July 12, 2018

If you are thinking of starting private geriatric care management, a competition survey is critical to decide if you can make a profit in this business

You are surveying who your competition is in the geographic area you want to serve. You are discovering if you can achieve market share in the area you choose to serve.

You want to create a survey that tracks the individual care manager’s in your services area, and find out what their hourly fee is, do they now include homecare, what geriatric care management services does each GCM offer.

This will also tell you if the local market is too saturated for your new business to compete with the other care management agencies. It will test whether you can make a profit- can you make money, pay your bills, actually go to the next step while doing good?

Fewer businesses are failing in 2018 for many reasons. One is the tendency of would-be entrepreneurs to evaluate business opportunities more carefully before taking the plunge, by doing a competition survey. Potential company founders are more selective than they used to be. This means fewer marginal companies – businesses whose products are not needed or whose markets are already being served by other businesses – are being formed. As a result, the average American company is stronger and more likely to survive than it once was. This means doing a competition survey to find out if your product care management is really needed in your market and are too many geriatric care management competitors, in your area for you to successfully compete as a new business.

Learn how to do your market assessment and competition survey ( or secret shopper) in the Handbook of Geriatric Care Management 4th edition and discover whether you have enough customers in your area to start your care management business. Don’t Guess and fail.

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