Aging Archives ⋆ Cathy Cress

Republicans Hate the Care Economy in New Debt Reconciliation Bill

May 31, 2023

Republicans hate the care economy so Joe Manchin, blocked the care economy bill last year

Republicans hate the care economy. Joe Manchin blocked the Care Infrastructure Bill last year without clearly saying what he wanted, butting heads through press releases and conferences last night. Calling the bill welfare society legislation, Manchin was saying actually, no new programs like Medicare covering dental, vision, and hearing for seniors, which has left seniors below the top 10% deaf, blind with rotting teeth, and women without free childcare, leaving working women paying 1/3 of their income in childcare to go to maintain a job.

If Debt Ceiling Bill Passes Medicaid Cuts for no Employment -from Hating Care Economy

Republicans hate the care economy today. If the new Debt ceiling bill passes, Medicaid recipients will just have no vision and dental, but no Medicaid at all -if they do not work while sick or disabled.

Republicans hate the care economy. The House debt-ceiling bill cuts would put more than 10 million people at significant risk of losing health coverage by instituting a failed policy that takes federal Medicaid coverage away from people who cannot prove they meet a work-reporting requirement or qualify for an exemption. When implemented in Arkansas in 2018, 1 in 4 people subject to the policy lost coverage in just seven months, while there was no increase in employment.

When Medicaid is Cut, so is the In-Home Supportive Services Program Part of the Hated Care Economy

In-Home, Supportive Services are part of the Medicaid and care economy. So under Republican make cuts, with the new debt ceiling bill when recipients of Medicaid who are considered disabled- will be denied Medicaid if they cannot work, and they will lose their care providers – the real care economy The In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) Program is a statewide program in California called the Medi-Cal program. It provides long-term services and supports for California residents who are aged, blind, or disabled and are at risk of nursing home placement. Available benefits include personal care assistance and homemaker services to assist these individuals in living safely and independently in their home or the home of a loved one. Program participants can self-direct their care, allowing them to choose and hire their own caregivers, including friends and relatives.

Within IHSS, there are 4 programs, the first two of which serve the majority of IHSS program beneficiaries.

If You are a Geriatric Care Manager

Many of you must deal with only the 10%, as Medicare does not cover care management. But you need to see the whole picture of the care economy. Low-income seniors on Medicaid are as important as concierge seniors and should not be dumped from Medicaid because they cannot work while experiencing all the disabilities of aging. Plus, you should not risk your own business income that will lose in spades when the new debt reconciliation bill, like your ceiling, crumbles, and cracks and cascades down through your life, severing seniors’ social security and threatening your own care management agency. So contact your congressman or woman and tell them to vote for the debt ceiling bill Common Cause has this easy way to find and contact your congressman

If You Are a Woman Work In Aging or a Democrat, Call Your Congressman

Care Infrastructure and deb ceiling failure, and financial catastrophe may be upon us if folks in health care, older constituents, and democrats of all ages do need to contact their congressman immediately and tell them to support this bill. They control the votes for the bill, and you must let them know you will only vote for them if they do. Common Cause has this easy way to find and contact your congressman. Tell them to vote for the debt ceiling bill and why.If you believe in Medicare, Medicaid recipients have the right to keep benefits without working, and for us all to go off the cliff – with the Debt Ceiling breach- social security checks not paid, our credit rate to skyrocket, the bond market to fall- what you pay for everything to soar- catastrophe all around – call not write your Congressman.

Interested in starting a care management business or adding one to your business to help seniors? Contact Cathy Cress MSW

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

May 25, 2023

Who is Your Market in an Aging Life or geriatric care management business?

How Do you find Concierge Clients? Your market as a care manager is the rich and famous people, your concierge clients, and three other wealthy groups. The lower 90% only call during a crisis, which usually leads to home care. Homecare costs between 4000-6000 a month. This is why you need to serve that top 10%. According to Pew research, the upper 10% can afford that in this nation of broad income disparity, and 90% below cannot.

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 considered when developing a business plan for a for-profit, fee-based, Geriatric care management business and so the question becomes how do you find concierge clients?.

Who Can Really Afford Geriatric Care Management

How Do you find Concierge Clients?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 and a private duty home care agency, and are willing and able 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, among the rich and famous, the top 1% who actually held onto its share of national wealth in the 2008 economic crisis and gained quite a bit with Trump’s tax cut in 2019

Why Need vs. Demand is the Only Way to Fiscally Survive in GCM A Hard As That May Be to GCM’s

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

How Do you find Concierge Clients – What Words do you use in your copy – what keywords do you use to attract them to you?

WHITE PAPER LANDING PAGE

Do You Know the Best Phrases To Attract VIP Care Management Clients? Click Here for FREE Download!

Sign-up for my Free White paper to learn to use the copy & keywords to sign-up for home care or care management Concierge-VIP Clients who can afford care management & home care as Medicare does not cover long-term care

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Merging Care Management with Homecare Gives You a Competitive Edge.

May 16, 2023

Merging Care Management to Homecare Gives You a Competitive Edge.

Merging care management with home Care gives you a competitive edge, but you need to do a Competition Survey to find out how to position your merged agency ahead of all your completion.

Why should you add geriatric care management to your private-duty home care agency?

It can make a client shopping for a Care Managed homecare agency chooses you instead of your competition because you offer one-stop shopping. The adult child does not have to hire one agency to manage care and a second to do homecare. You offer an enticing package for the beleaguered, stressed caregiver desperately seeking help.

That’s called positioning.

Merging care management with home Care gives you a competitive edge and shows what makes you different from your competition. Adult children in a struggling with their aging parents learn that geriatric care management plus private duty home care is an added bonus to families in a crisis. Thus a care management service can be an important differentiator for agencies offering home care. It helps you get more clients and outstrip your competition. So you need to find out through the competition survey if there are any care-managed home care agencies and what you can offer that they do not in their menu of services like care management like Move Management or Home From the Hospital, all offered in my operations manual.

A geriatric care manager can do a great job of teaching clients and families why they need care. A geriatric Psychosocial and functional assessment and care plan is a very clear way for families to understand care needs and recommendations and to plainly see all the options for providing this care and choose your agency. The GCM is looked at as a desperately needed guide, not a salesperson, to get services started.

Care manager assessments are broader in scope than a private duty home care assessment and include not only family and social supports and home safety but spirituality, Quality of Life, finances, legal, nutrition, environment, mental status, depression, sibling rivalry, dysfunctional families, relocation options and assistance and death and dying. A GCM assesses for alcoholism and drug abuse, domestic violence, sleep quality, sexuality, activity tolerance, personal values, and cultural beliefs. So they offer an in-depth overview of clients’ and families’ problems.

Your geriatric care manager’s care plan gives recommendations and options to consider so the family and client can make the best choices for providing this care. The bonus to you is this lengthy, very valuable assessment is billed.

Plus, the Family feels like they have a very involved individual concierge to solve their problems

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New FREE Webinar-Why Merge Home Care and Care Management

Webinar-Why Merge Home Care and Care Management

When-May 18, 2023 -2 PM -3:30 PM PST

The first and most important reason to merge care management to home care is money. You will be able to capture billable hours that you and now giving away for free. The second reason to add care management to home care is market positioning. Clients will choose your agency if you offer this merger and competitors do not. A third reason is that a care manager is perfect for introducing home care to family caregivers. Care Managers sit down with the family and review the geriatric assessment and care plan they created for the client. Last, this 1-1 care manager meeting introduces a concierge guide through the labyrinth of caregiving, showing exactly what homecare plus care management will do to solve the client’s problems, increase their quality of life and offer relief to the sometimes-desperate family members. Find out more by signing up for this free webinar

Learn

How this merger creates more Profit for both Care Management and Home Care

The Advantages of Merging Home Care and Care Management

Competition Survey to make third parties and Adult Children Choose you

Co-Branding the merged agencies.

Technology for both home care and care management

Co-Locating both staff.

Marketing Merged care manager home care.

Critical Success Factors for the Success of the Merger

LAST DAY TO SIGN UP

Link-SIGN UP NOW

Why Adding Care Planning & Care Management Private Duty Home Care Great Idea?

May 1, 2023

Adding Care Management to Home Care Gives Clients Path to Hope

By adding geriatric care management to a private duty home care agency, new clients will understand the solutions and path to hope you bring beyond home care. This offers buy-into your agency, customer satisfaction, and trust in your service, thus hope that the elder care problem can be solved.

In the care planning process, a geriatric care manager is vital to families, particularly in the early stages of caregiving. Most families do not understand the needs and problems of the older adult or the costs associated with these options. They are under terrible stress because they feel out of control. The care manager will explain the problems, solutions, and cost at a one-to-one care planning meeting. This makes new families and clients feel in control and have hope, which is vital to keeping the case long-term. GCM becomes their trusted guide.

A geriatric care manager sorts all the problems in the case and comes up with important solutions in a care plan; they use that to explain what is needed for the client. She/He is very much like a detective- a professional Sherlock Holmes, solving the case for a very confused, desperate family.

Education training and experience.

Providing a care plan and opportunity for discussion and buy-in among family members can be important in educating, initiating, modifying, or continuing PDHC services. Instead of an agency, the client bonds with the care manager and builds a 1-1 relationship that is long-lasting and puts a face on an agency.
The key is a highly trained, experienced, certified geriatric care manager, not a staff member who is called a care manager but has no training. Since the care managers added to the homecare bill per hour, this multi-faceted professional will pay for her/his salary many times and allow you to bill for what you have been doing for free.
Creating a care plan is not just an art- it is a skill that takes education, training, and experience.

New Free Webinar-Why Merge Home Care and Care Management

Find Out More.

Webinar-Why Merge Home Care and Care Management

When-May 18, 2023 -2 PM -3:30 PM PST

Money is the first and most important reason to merge care management with home care. You will be able to capture billable hours that you and now giving away for free. The second reason to add care management to home care is market positioning. Clients will choose your agency if you offer this merger and competitors do not. A third reason is that a care manager is perfect for introducing home care to family caregivers. Care Managers sit down with the family and review the geriatric assessment and care plan they created for the client. Last, this 1-1 care manager meeting introduces a concierge guide through the labyrinth of caregiving, showing exactly what homecare plus care management will do to solve the client’s problems, increase their quality of life and offer relief to the sometimes-desperate family members. Find out more by signing up for this free webinar.

Learn

How this merger creates more Profit for both Care Management and Home Care

The Advantages of Merging Home Care and Care Management

Competition Survey to make third parties and Adult Children Choose you

Co-Branding the merged agencies.

Technology for both home care and care management

Co-Locating both staff.

Marketing Merged care manager home care.

Critical Success Factors for the Success of the Merger

Link-SIGN UP NOW

Adding Aging Life or Geriatric Care Management? How Do you Market It?

April 27, 2023

Adding PDHC to your care management agency can significantly increase revenue

but it also involves several changes to your operations, marketing, hiring, and overall agency management. In the 2013 Care Management Benchmark Study, care managers who owned a home care agency made four times the revenue in-home care in 95% and in all cases made double their revenue.1 The process follows many of the same steps outlined in the previous sections on adding care management to PDHC agencies.

Merger Gives You Ultimate Control

The addition of PDHC staff gives you ultimate control of the care management process because you have control across the entire relationship with the client, from care managers to PDHC staff, if your client chooses PDHC. You do not have to depend on the integrity, safety, and reliability of outside care management agencies to deliver high-quality care to your customers.
However, this means adding a large burden of creating that safe, reliable PDHC staff yourself to those clients who are care management clients (i.e., all PDHC clients must have some level of care management). If you choose to accept PDHC clients who are not care management clients, don’t plan on these clients automatically becoming care management clients because families that start with PDHC alone tend to stick with PDHC only.

To change that, we suggest marketing internally to your PDHC clients using several case studies that show how care management can enhance the quality of PDHC; otherwise, families often opt for the lower-cost option of only PDHC— and assume you (as their agency) will provide care coordination and perhaps care management for free. You can also present care management services when the home care family is in a crisis like the care provider is burnt out and ready to unnecessarily going to place the elder, or when the elderly client needs to move because ( Move Management)

Market to your Existing Home Care Clients to Sell care management

We also suggest adding care management products that care managers can do successfully for home care clients like Home From the Hospital. If you have a home care clients who is facing hospitalization and your family is long-distance offer this care management product. Here a care manager can guide the client and family through pre and post-plus in the hospital to successfully help the family, who if long-distance needs a guide who is right on the ground to be the surrogate family member guiding the patient to a successful discharge home without readmission and working with a Medicare agency post-discharge. Adding other care management products to your new merged menu of services. This will be an effective tool in competing against PDHC agencies that will likely position themselves against your practice as a low-cost option. You need to be able to show the incremental model that geriatric care-managed PDHC offers versus stand-alone PDHC.

Adding Aging Life or Geriatric Care Management? How Do you Market It?

Adding PDHC to your care management agency can significantly increase revenue

Merger Gives You Ultimate Control

Market to your Existing Home Care Clients to Sell care management

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