Watching Harvey’s Devistation-Do You Have a 2017 Emergency Plan for Your Elder Care Agency ?

August 31, 2017

Do you have procedures for an emergency at your Aging Life, Geriatric Care Management or private duty home care agency?

The ability of an agency to function despite an emergency is critical. The 2017 hurricane season has brought us the horror of Harvey with a category 4 storm that has wreaked never before seen flooding. So far crews in Texas have found the bodies of 31 victims of Harvey’s wrath and warned on Wednesday that the number of dead would almost certainly soar as water levels across much of the Houston area start to recede.

In the US.Katrina’s devastation in New Orleans led to new Federal Rules that forced a wide range of health care providers to create emergency plans which created better emergency plans in nursing homes. This brought plans and safety drills but plans had never included the almost biblical flooding that is happening in Houston right now.Ben Taub hospital even with an emergency plan was so flooded it had a difficult time getting patients out, although, in the end, every patient was moved to safety

So in light of Harvey- Does your agency have an emergency plan?

Informal procedures work in a start up care management business but what if the solo practitioner is ill and out?

If illness, accident, some other unforeseen event overtakes an owner or manager, no emergency procedures can be suicide in an emergency, not to mention liability to your elderly clients.

Katrina left New Orleans GCM’s, desperately scrambling to care for their clients in hotels as the floodwater rose. They were and left to re-build their business again, which took years.

Every geriatric care professional needs a formal, written backup plan that dictates action, should a disaster or emergency arise.

It ‘s necessary to assess your company’s risk of temporary or permanent service disruption if a disaster or emergency is experienced. This may seem an overwhelming task at first, but when you break it down into pieces, it becomes workable.

Learn about preparing for emergencies how you can prepare you, your clients and staff for disasters and absences of key personnel. Preparing for these ever growing emergencies, work wide is now in Liz Barlowe’s chapter Preparing for Emergencies in the Handbook of Geriatric Care Management.

Get the new Handbook of Geriatric Care Management 4th edition now out on Kindle

How to Assess the Caregiver and Avoid Hospital Readmission

August 30, 2017

Assessing the Family Caregiver is a new but crucial concept for geriatric care managers and professionals in aging.As geriatric care managers and aging professional, we are health and social services oriented. For almost 3 decades we have assessed the care receiver for problems with function, social connection, and psychological issues. If we suspect depression we have completed that screen. If our client plans to move, has cultural needs and preferences, exhibits signs of dementia, need ways to improve quality of life or a spiritual connection, we have assessed the care receiver for those problems.

All our assessments have left out the major fact – care is an exchange. To receive care, the patient/client usually needs a family caregiver to give or supervise it. That family caregiver is the glue that holds it all together and his or her inner bond begins to break with the strain of caring.

Other countries have seen what the US has yet to grasp. In the United Kingdom, a seminal law passed in 1995 called the Recognition and Services Act , which provided British caregivers a statutory right to request an assessment at the same time that a frail elder or adult with disabilities is assessed.

So developing a caregiver assessment is critical, especially in this era of penalties to hospitals for readmission. The caregiver is the key to keeping an older person in the community and not back in the hospital. If they are not trained, have physical problems that inhibit caring, find some tasks, like changing adult diapers uncomfortable, have no car to pick up meds or drive to the doctor’s follow up an appointment, you have a problem and probably a readmission.

Learn how to do a caregiver assessment along with a care receiver assessment .This will help you keep your aging client both out of the hospital and potentially out of inappropriate placement in a skilled nursing facility. Plus you will learn just not how to assess caregiver burnout but be able to create a care plan that will help your family caregiver have a better quality of life while they giver better care to their loved one. Read the chapter ” Assessing the Caregiver ” in my book Care Manager’s Working With the Aging Family, Jones and Bartlett. The price has just been cut in half to make it more affordable for the practitioner.

What Does a Care Manager Do When a Client Asks For Help with Assisted Suicide?

August 9, 2017

The terminal phase of any life-threatening illness is the time between diagnosis and the final decline when no cure or extension of life is in the offing. The individual confronts progressive decline and deterioration. Death is imminent. The care manager has a role.

The focus of doctors and patients now changes from attempting to cure the illness or prolong life to trying to provide relief from pain and to comfort the sufferer. Religious concerns such as what happens after someone passes away or how to handle the suffering at the end of life or how to give comfort to family members are the focus during this time as well as trying to tie up any loose ends.

But what happens, when in the terminal phase the client asks you, the geriatric care manager, about the right to die in your state. In California where In June 2016, our state became the fourth in the nation to allow medical aid in dying for patients suffering from terminal illness, they do have a right to discuss this with their physician. Four other states have passed this law including Oregon, 20 years ago.

In an article in yesterday’s New York Times a physician in Oakland, Ca discussed the ethical dilemma that physicians face. She called for more, guidance and training for physicians in solving this dilemma themselves but also said the law was working well.

For geriatric care managers.

This speaks to more directions for care managers who face this request and it’s ensuing dilemma. We cannot make any of these decisions but this adds another step for us if the clients ask us to help them with physician assisted suicide. So we need protocols and training as well.

I am adding new protocols ,about requests for physician assisted suicide, to the product Care managers Working With Death and Dying in My Geriatric Care Management Operations Manual, for those who want to add a death and dying service or End of Life to their Menu of Services

How Do Concierge Aging Clients Transform a Geriatric Care Manager’s Bottom Line?

August 7, 2017

Adding concierge customer’s services to your geriatric care management

agency transforms your agency into profitable service.

Why- a geriatric care manager is a powerful health care concierge, just like the

new concierge medical services.

This is a powerful new selling point to potential GCM clients who are in the

top 10% income brackets.

These clients who can afford long term care geriatric care management and

private duty home care.

Why offering concierge services great idea? A geriatric care manager is a

highly skilled professional who acts like a personal assistant to the aging

family.

You offer highly personalized aging parent care.

Concierge clients can reach you at almost any time

You build a deep relationship with the client and family.

As a GPS through elder care, the GCM helps them step by step through one of

the hardest journeys in their life.

A geriatric care manager’s highly personalized service meets all the needs of

the aging family and the client.

GCM’s are like a concierge at a 5-star hotel there to serve the family by

solving their care giving problems and making elder care more seamless.

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Free Webinar on 5 Steps to Reach Concierge Care Management Clients

July 5, 2017

Well-heeled seniors, according to the New York Times, may be middle-class retirees who buy shoes from Payless but have a defined pension where that allows them to afford care at home when they need it and private care management. They rode the postwar economy, held jobs long term and through that defined pension (no 401K) face a very healthy financial picture in aging. They worked for city, county, state government are teachers, truck drivers, social workers or were union members in all trades. They had a career at Xerox, IBM, Campbell Soup and big Fortune 500 companies.

These middle-class concierge clients will really shop around and want the best service and seamless points of the compass that an aging life or geriatric care manager can give each client. So you still have to deliver high-quality services

An aging life or geriatric care manager must still use different branding, marketing approach and hyper- attention to seamless care to find these middle-class concierge clients who are affluent clients who can afford their services long term.

This niche market within a market will be careful shoppers, as they have lived frugal lives before retirement, so beyond great services , have a great intake process, perfect elevator pitch and give them care management products not “peace of mind” and assessment.

Find out more in my webinar Learn The 5 Steps to Reach the Concierge Client

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How to Make a Profit Serving the Older Concierge Clients,

August 23, 2017h 11:00 -12:00 PST

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Learn more and get the details

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

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