How To Create a Team in the Long Distance Family During Covid 19?

May 16, 2020

OFFERING A COVID care plan product with Long Distance Care Providers

The first step for the Long-distance family members (LDF) worried about elder exposure and hospitalization of Covid-19 can be to take a team approach. This can be a call with a geriatric care manager for a consultation that will help long-distance families work as a team to keep elder family member safe while you are at a distance This Care management consultation can be done with a HIPAA-compliant video conferencing services

The first thing that the geriatric care manager works on is to find out if the older person has the required legal documents – Advanced directives, POA/HCPOA & GCM HIPAA release because of the risk of both hospitalization and death due to age-related COVID-19. If these documents are not present, the care manager will have a discussion with senior and the long-distance family regarding their wishes, explaining older adults over 65 are at higher risk for severe illness. The care manager will discuss who is to be the health care decision-maker with the older adult and suggest they consult a family attorney or elder law attorney to complete. If they choose not to use an elder law attorney, as time is of the essence in the pandemic, they can suggest access AARP advanced directives documents for any state which can be executed quickly.

If documents are completed, locate in the home and provide explanations to the family that they must give a copy to emergency contacts and physicians as required and place in planning binder. In the planning “Go binder” list all emergency contacts with phone numbers/e-mail addresses – family, friends, physicians, pharmacy, professionals providing in-home services. Also, list all medications and prescribing physicians in “Go Binder”. Upload documents into caregiving applications like caring village.com so the long-distance from always has the updated documents.

Join my new GCM on Line Classes Working on Covid- 19

This research was done by my geriatric care management student GCM Maryann Prudhomme. My students are working on Covid-19 products in both all of my two new online classes in blackboard right now. If you are interested in joining our class and

learning tools to be a geriatric care manager go to cathycress.com online classes

Join Me in My New Free Webinar

Conquer Care Management Sales- 5 Steps Close the Sale on COVID-19 Products

Sales have severely declined in COVID_19. Learn how to increase your, clients, through all your products but especially new Covid-19 and telehealth. Sell Successfully

this and any GCM product in a 2-part intake. Closing the sale means the client signing your contract and giving you a deposit. Most care managers are untrained and terrified of this process. They are more terrified of going out of business with COVID 19

Learn the 5 steps to make and close a care management sale to get that contract signed, get a deposit, grow your business, bolster cash flow, make payroll, and stop you from being one of the 50% of new US businesses that fail after five years.

When?

Date Tuesday, June 23

Time 2:00 PM -3:30 PM

You will Learn

What are Covid-19 GCM Services you can offer

How to make the sale in the inquiry call -with a complimentary consultation

How to ” Identify needs using client” challenge questions” to find the problem you need to solve to make the sale

How to present your offer by selling solutions to the problem with a mini care plan

How to manage objections if the caller has concerns about price or product

How to close the sale with non-aggressive closing questions to have your contract signed, get a deposit, and grow your business with a new client

The 2 Deadliest US Sites of COVID-19 Nursing Homes & Prisons

May 2, 2020

PRISON INMATES AND NURSING HOME PATIENTS NOT 6FT APART – 6 FEET UNDER

70% of inmates in federal prisons have COVID-19. In Kansas, the Lansing Correctional Facility had a riot of inmates over COVID-19 lack of care or protection It took the rebellion to get the coronavirus testing PPE and care. The Bureau of Prisons in Kansas confirmed finally that 79 staff have coronavirus and 88 prisons and prisoners dead.

Older residents in nursing homes cannot rebel like prisoners. Many can’t even walk. The Atlantic Magazine just published an article, We are Killing Elders Now. The writer states “In at least six states, these fatalities account for half of all COVID-19 deaths, and according to the World Health Organization, half of all coronavirus fatalities in Europe have been traced to nursing homes too. Some of this mortality is linked to long-term-care facilities that are shoddily run or that violate health standards. But most of them are doing the best they can with what they have. And they don’t have much”.

KAISER FOUNDATION NURSING HOME STAFFING AND USE OF PPE NOT REQUIRED IN MOST STATES

Kaiser reports -Staff Screening. It is more common for states to recommend rather than require daily screening of staff for illness in NFs (24 states recommend, 16 states + DC require)

Use of PPE. More states recommend (23 states) than require (7 states + DC) staff to use PPE

Two States that require testing for coronavirus of ALL residents of nursing homes are Maryland where 556 have died as of the Washington Post article. and Tennessee

THE FEDS HAVE NO CMS FEDERAL GUIDELINES OR REPORTING

We have no federal guidelines for safety testing according to an article by the Kaiser Foundation

It is now estimated that 16,000 deaths have occurred in nursing homes and that is without the federal government revealing any numbers and not making available any testing. But the numbers are probably huge- if we could just do testing.

CMS announced it would have a meeting of a “panel” of experts “ sometime at the end of May”. After probably 20,000 older people died and the feds did nothing this shows their sense of urgency about this pandemic’s national “elder cleansing”.

WHAT CONNECTS PRISONS AND NURSING HOMES – CONCENTRATION CAMPS

So, what is the connection between the viral spread of COVID-19 in nursing homes and prisons- 6 feet ? Prisoners and residents, in nursing homes, and prisons cannot social distance. Jails and prisons have human beings crammed together with no choice. Nursing homes have 2 beds or if you are on Medicaid three to a room. Neither group has a choice to social distance. They are ” concentrated” as in concentration camps or death camps.

Do SOMETHING – HELP NURSING HOMES PREVENT MORE CARNAGE

So, as someone who has spent her career in aging, I am calling out to everyone, especially professional in aging – do something. Since the feds appear to be doing little- call your congressman, write a letter to the editor.

BE KIND LIKE RACHEL MADDOW REPORTS LA JEWISH HOME LA WAS

Rachel Maddow suggests calling your local nursing homes and see what they need. Be kind like the LA Jewish Home was to a smaller nursing home LA Brier Oaks. They wanted to test their residents and had no tests and the larger LA Jewish Home had tests and shared them with the smaller as a good neighbor. What they found was ravaging but it also showed caring and generosity. Care and be generous and show the helpless elders in nursing homes in your town you are opposed to -nursing home being prisons or concentration camps.

How Important are Nurse Care Managers?

February 28, 2020

My husband Pete and our family have our own RN case manager.

Pete had open heart surgery 3 days ago at Stanford Hospital. The utility and utter comfort of having a care manager hit me personally on this health care journey.

Our Stanford Cardiac Care Manager

Stanford’s cardiac unit is a wonder to behold. Your family touchpoint is, of course, the care manager. She is your navigator, comforter in chief, and patient-friendly-dispenser of information framed in a digestible synopsis.

In her warm yet filled with authority voice, our care manager Christine Harris RN BSN greeted us in pre-op and explained what would happen during the surgery. She soothed our fractured nerves. Facing open heart surgery was, as with all patients, like taking a long trip you researched well but never understand the whole journey nor the wrong turns you just might take.

It had taken Pete 7 years to get to this point as he was one of a category of 2% heart patients that had no symptoms. He had not wanted to do the surgery and they respected his wishes. In the last few months, they found his heart not getting enough oxygen, so he finally decided to do it. The day before surgery he was chopping down a plum tree, among the many, in our California yard.

12 Hours of Open Heart Surgery

As the open heart surgery was 12 hours long- most of it pre-op and then post-op, Christina our care manager became our navigator through the long hours of waiting She came to us at every stage, shared information that calmed us and made us feel health literate about what was happening to Pete.

Trouble on the Tracks

But in the late afternoon, when we were feeling so sure he was sailing through the procedure, we became alarmed. Stanford has a color-coded electronic screen of all patents in surgery showing you their operating stage. We were watching this large electronic surgery board, much like an airline flight board with scheduled take-offs and landings. Pete was about to land in post-op then before our eyes -reversed to the operating room. Pedro, the navigator of the board, had no idea what happened but told us Christine would be down to talk to us. My two daughters and I were then on red alert and our lovefest with the ease of all this dumped back into reality.

Tear in the Heart

As any case manager would, Christine arrived with calming information. As they were about to close up Pete’s chest after the new valve went in flawlessly, they noticed a small tear in the aorta. She explained that the aorta, like all of Pete’s body, was almost 8o- years old and thin enough to tear. Dr. Fichbine saw bleeding, along with the 30 residents who were watching, did a small patch, closed up the incision then sent him on his way to post-op. In reality, it was more serious, but she shared the steps taken and he was in truth patched up and on his way to recovery. She gave us the right information mellowing it out enough that we went from Post 9/11 color-coded red- terrorist attack imminent —to calming green – low threat. Pete arrived back in post-op and we got to see him at 7:30 that night 13 hours after his trip through the surgical theaters.

Christine is also our head discharge planner and goes to see Pete every day, along with Dr. Fishbine on rounds. She will be there at discharge when she, a Stanford pharmacist, and a cardiac nurse share discharge plans.

So thanks to all the care managers who like Christine, guide us over troubled waters, comfort us and hold our hands while they navigate us to a safer shore.

Close the GCM or ALCA Sale to Assisted Living With Benefits

February 19, 2020

Marketing Tactics -Use Benefits

ALCA members need to sell the benefits of Geriatric Care Management to assisted living. Care managers are perfect professionals to help assisted living residents if they have just moved in and are unhappy with the move if they are not participating in activities and withdrawing from friends and in general when they are nor thriving in the resident community.

But marketing care management to ALF’s takes some particular marketing tactics

Although it might seem counterintuitive, consumers rarely want to buy things for the sake of buying them – they want what they purchase to solve their problems.

To borrow from the example of an umbrella, a feature of this particular umbrella might be its unbreakable spokes or wind-resistant construction – the benefit of which is staying dry even in strong winds that might break lesser umbrellas. The benefit of staying dry in strong winds that break other umbrellas – make the sale.

Clients who purchase home care or care management want to buy benefits – what your product or service can do for them.

GCM Benefits To Assisted Living

Let’s take a third-party. Care Managers often market to Assisted Living. ALF Directors want to hear how your ALCA or GCM agency is going to help the Assisted Living site. Of course, you can describe your agency features, price, training of staff, gold standard service. However, benefits are what make the sale and keep the Assisted Living dry not flooded by the rain.

So here are some benefits you can offer to Assisted Living when you are seeking referrals and you have a service for residents that involves Quality Of Life

YOUR GCM ALCA AGENCIES BENEFITS

The problem: Assisted Living does not want residents to move out most facilities are strictly non-medical and do not have one to one companion and geriatric care management services. Your agency can solve that problem.

The assisted living and retirement community population sometimes have clients with needs that cannot be met with their nonmedical, non-one-on-one support services, (usually just an activities director)

You will help facility with residents who are not adjusting to the facility or considering moving by engaging them in activities that will enhance the quality of their life, SO WHAT so they remain in the facility
You will help residents not engaging in activities to participate in the ALF’s activities program or outside activities and socialization program through a quality of life assessment & companion, SO WHAT so they do not want to move out of the facility
You will engage with new residents who are just adjusting both to the facility and their move, to engage in socialization and activity programs. You can help them make friends & engage in outside activities through a quality of life assessment and companion, SO WHAT so they do not consider moving out
You will make monthly monitoring visits to make sure Companion is meeting all the client’s needs, keep in touch with the family and facility with frequent e-mails, texts or telephone updates plus sending a monthly report SO WHAT so everyone is on the same page through your great communication skills.

So, selling the benefits to the third party, who will refer your agency to families of residents who are struggling, is a much more potent selling point that features of your agency.

Free Webinar –

Join me in my new FREE Webinar
Learn to Sell Benefits not Features to Third Parties to Grow Your Care Management Bottom Line

When: February,20th 2020
2 PM-3:30 PM PST
Learn

What is a benefit vs features and how to find benefits for each 3rd party you market to?

What specific problems you solve for wealth managers, elderlaw attorneys and concierge physicians

What specific problems to solve for upscale Assisted Living, accountants, financial planners, MD’s

Step by Step how to set up meetings with 3rd parties to make the sale

What is the Care Manager’s Role with Hospice?

February 15, 2020

What is a Geriatric Care Manager’s Role in Hospice?

The geriatric care manager serves older adults before they find they are dying. GCM’s work with chronic care clients, some times for years, who eventually succumb to their illness. They also work with clients who come to them facing the end of life issues.

The process of acceptance and adjustment to terminal illness has five phases:

· before the diagnosis,

· the acute phase

· the chronic phase

· the recovery phase

· the terminal phase

A care manager is a GPS for both the client and family through the

5 stages, bringing in critical services like palliative care and hospice

caregiver respite and quality of life the whole continuum of care for supporting the end of life- at the right phase at the right time –

Benefits You (as a GCM) will Bring to Hospice

You (as a geriatric care manager) will bring the client to Hospice much earlier in the 5 stages of death and dying than one month before death

You will do a Quality of Death assessment to find out the patient’s wishes for a good death

You will make sure all the critical paperwork is needed is gathered and organized, including:
Insurance
Legal
Financial
Healthcare
End of life

Interventions vary according to the phase. The GCM may already have served the client and they are now facing a terminal diagnosis. But a geriatric care manager may be brought in when the family is negotiating through any one of these phases, their work begins with making a determination of what phase the client is in and what services are appropriate for that client at that stage. They are also the best professionals to bring in the quality of life to every phase so that the client can have not only a good death but a good life to the very end.

Benefits You Bring To the Family Friends and Hospice

You will monitor the client/care receiver’s and family caregiver’s health and psychosocial status and the paid caregiver’s care plan, to improve the quality of care and life for the client and caregiver So That Hospice can direct all it’s attention to the client and assured family
caregivers needs are being met

Shot of a wife consoling her husband during a counseling session with a therapist

You will accompany the client to all medical appointments and make sure that the 10 minutes cover all questions, that the physician’s orders are recorded and followed, and that all meds are picked up and set up properly So What –Hospice does not provide this and ensures the client gets to all appointment relieves the family of another task and everyone is getting all the correct information from the physician

You will make sure that the family has an online personal health record or a notebook if they wish So What -The family has a way to keep track of information from many professional involved and passes on the correct information to everyone in the family and they can feel more in control in an emotionally chaotic time

You will do a caregiver assessment and suggest interventions from the local continuum of care, including support groups, counseling, respite care, and private duty home care So What –You are insuring a whole family approach and the family caregivers are getting the support and respite they need in this frightening time for their loved one

You will coordinate family meetings to facilitate issues like shock, grief, and shutting down So What- You are a container, allowing the family caregiver to deposit their tremulous at timesdesperate feelings in a safe place so they can get help from you and be calmer for the dying loved one
You will coordinate health literacy information and training of disease skills for family So What- You will create a forum for the family caregivers to express their grief, fear and even hopes and demystifying all the unknown medical terminology to make the family feel more literate and self-assured in approaching the medical staff to get the information they need

You will monitor anticipatory grief in family and friends and bring in resources

So What- You will create a forum for the family caregivers to express their grief fear even hope and find the help they need to so on with the journey to death

You will review all new medication with family caregivers and care staff- So What-you will unravel the confusing litany of pharmaceutical terminology and make sure the family and friends both understand what med does what, how to set up meds and remind the meds when hospice is not present

Join me in my new FREE Webinar
Learn to Sell Benefits not Features to Third Parties to Grow Your Care Management Bottom Line

When: February,20th 2020
2PM-3:30 PM PST
Learn

What is a benefit vs features and how to find benefits for each 3rd party you market to?

What specific problems you solve for hospice, wealth managers, elder law attorneys, and concierge physicians

What specific problems to solve for upscale Assisted Living, accountants, financial planners, MD’s

Step by Step how to set up meetings with 3rd parties to make the sale

SIGN UP

Find out more by watching my youtube playlist on Death and Dying on my channel Geriatric Care 1

Follow Cathy @ cathycress.com

How To Create a Team in the Long Distance Family During Covid 19?

OFFERING A COVID care plan product with Long Distance Care Providers

Other problems that geriatric care managers who offer consultation can solve for long-distance family members

Join my new GCM on Line Classes Working on Covid- 19

Join Me in My New Free Webinar

Conquer Care Management Sales- 5 Steps Close the Sale on COVID-19 Products

When?

Date Tuesday, June 23

Time 2:00 PM -3:30 PM

You will Learn

What are Covid-19 GCM Services you can offer

How Important are Nurse Care Managers?

My husband Pete and our family have our own RN case manager.

Pete had open heart surgery 3 days ago at Stanford Hospital. The utility and utter comfort of having a care manager hit me personally on this health care journey.

Our Stanford Cardiac Care Manager

12 Hours of Open Heart Surgery

Trouble on the Tracks

Tear in the Heart

Contact

Connect with Cathy

Get Cathy’s “10 Critical Success Steps to a Profitable Aging Life or GCM Business”

OFFERING A COVID care plan product with Long Distance Care Providers

Other problems that geriatric care managers who offer consultation can solve for long-distance family members

Join my new GCM on Line Classes Working on Covid- 19

Join Me in My New Free Webinar

Conquer Care Management Sales- 5 Steps Close the Sale on COVID-19 Products

When?

Date Tuesday, June 23

Time 2:00 PM -3:30 PM

You will Learn

What are Covid-19 GCM Services you can offer

PRISON INMATES AND NURSING HOME PATIENTS NOT 6FT APART – 6 FEET UNDER

KAISER FOUNDATION NURSING HOME STAFFING AND USE OF PPE NOT REQUIRED IN MOST STATES

THE FEDS HAVE NO CMS FEDERAL GUIDELINES OR REPORTING

WHAT CONNECTS PRISONS AND NURSING HOMES – CONCENTRATION CAMPS

Do SOMETHING – HELP NURSING HOMES PREVENT MORE CARNAGE

BE KIND LIKE RACHEL MADDOW REPORTS LA JEWISH HOME LA WAS

My husband Pete and our family have our own RN case manager.

Pete had open heart surgery 3 days ago at Stanford Hospital. The utility and utter comfort of having a care manager hit me personally on this health care journey.

Our Stanford Cardiac Care Manager

12 Hours of Open Heart Surgery

Trouble on the Tracks

Tear in the Heart

Marketing Tactics -Use Benefits

GCM Benefits To Assisted Living

YOUR GCM ALCA AGENCIES BENEFITS

Free Webinar –

What is a Geriatric Care Manager’s Role in Hospice?

Benefits You (as a GCM) will Bring to Hospice

Benefits You Bring To the Family Friends and Hospice

Join me in my new FREE Webinar Learn to Sell Benefits not Features to Third Parties to Grow Your Care Management Bottom Line

Contact

Connect with Cathy

Get Cathy’s “10 Critical Success Steps to a Profitable Aging Life or GCM Business”

Join me in my new FREE Webinar
Learn to Sell Benefits not Features to Third Parties to Grow Your Care Management Bottom Line