Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

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11 Parts of Care Manager’s Role With Family Death and Dying of COVID-19?

February 4, 2021

 

GCM Role is Working With Family In COVID-19

Care managers cannot be in the hospital with a  patient dying of COVID-19. They can support their bereft adult children, who cannot see their parents during the hospitalization, in those last moments of goodbye’s or after the death in this deadly pandemic.

In normal times care managers play a big role in end of life issues. They are their navigators through all five stages of dying, many times long before palliative care or hospice are called. Often GCM’s can help the family and client to bring in hospice or palliative care. But is COVID -19 they can offer guidance to the family through the sometimes weeks of hospitalization, intubation, their loved one is on a ventilator and ultimately often- death separated from loved ones.

Navigation Through a COVID-19 Death

 The normal final passage through life can emotionally charged.  If the family is following a long labyrinth to the end, in coronavirus, the blind alleys may be blocked by a rushed hospitalization, banned from seeing their loved one in the hospital, and not understanding the disease that is killing their loved one.

Care managers can find an opening through this maze.  Family dynamics and fear of dying can all explode a fraught crisis of care in dying of coronavirus. When vital end-of-life decisions need to be made, the stress of the responsibility and the seriousness of the situation can break into a mammoth wave of distress fear, and anxiety over the “ whole family system”. The geriatric care manager specializes in solving these end of life decisions for whole family system even at the end of life.

Facilitate Family talks over hospitalized COVID-19 Elder

Care Managers can facilitate terrified discussions outside the hospital, and clear the way for family members to come together to work as a functional unit around an unknown killer disease that preys on their loved one. Understanding the differing viewpoints is critical.  Knowing what a parent wants and does not want during the last days and hours of life help define and simplify the role of the family.  It helps the family bear the burden of having the responsibility of making decisions that their parent wants. Turning this around can also help families have some solace that they carried out their parent’s wishes after their parent’s death. 

 

Care managers can help family members handle the stress of an elder’s hospitalization and death by:

  • Encouraging routines, exercise, and social connectedness with friends and family
  • Advocate for them with the hospital staff to get updates in this chaotic time in hospitals
  • Help them maintain contact with the” hospital quarterback “ to get updated medical status and give input
  • Find technology for the family to communicate with the hospitalized family member  via text, telephone, email, or video chat
  • Support and mediate if necessary proactive discussions and advanced directive preparation in a rush if not done
  • Build a circle of care can help to reduce some of the potential conflicts,
  • Support them in having essential conversations, prior to needing  intubation, on last wishes if health status deteriorates  
  • Provide opportunities to say goodbye via technology
  • guide them in setting up rituals that can celebrate the end of life and give solace to a family during a time when there are yet no rituals for a COVID-19 death.
  • Work with the hospital to set up Zoom with the family to say goodbye to a loved one. 
  • Geriatric care managers do much more with clients and families but especially now with Covid-19 elder’s and their families facing a  separated, fractious end of life
  • Deliver a Good End of Life- Add Death and Dying to Your Care Management Agency

     

    Join me Thursday March 11 and learn why End of Life Services Are a perfect new service for care managers

     Sign Up   

    In this 1 ½ -hour webinar you will learn how to

     

    1.Transition the patient/family through the five stages of death

  • 2.Help clients be active participants in their care3.Give the family/caregiver tools to manage care

    4. Provide family center care to caregiver and family

    5 Choose the right support services through all stages of death

    6.Introduce Hospice and Palliative care and work with their team

    7. Use ALCA End of Life Benefits During COVID

    8.Use  COVID -19  Family Coaching for GCM

    Sign Up 

    If you really want to add End of Life to your care management business sign up for this webinar now

     

     See more about Cathy and her book Care Manager’s Working With The Aging Family

  • DyingGriefandBurial in the AgingFamily

Filed Under: Advanced Directives and Covid-19, Aging, Aging Community & Covid-19, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, ALCA COVID-19 Crisis, ALCA Role Death and Dying, Blog, care manager, case manager, CIRCLE OF CARE, coronavirus, Coronavirus emergency plan, coronavirus shut down, Covid 19, COVID-19 & Care Management, Covid-19 Death, Death and Dying, Death and Dying Care Management, death and dying care manager, elder care manager, End of Life, Families, FREE WEBINAR, GCM role Death and Dying, GCM Working With Aging Family, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, Good Death, nurse care manager, Therapist Specializing in Aging Tagged With: adding end of life services, aging life and geraitric care manager, death and dying, death and dying in COVID-19, Death and Dying in hospital, end of life care manager, geriatric care manager, Hospice at end of life, Hospice Care, hospice for elderly parent, Navigation through END of LIfe, Palliative Care at end of life, Technolog COVID-19 in Hospital, Tools to manage end of life

Use HIPAA Compliant Telehealth to Coach Families on COVID

August 22, 2020

Why must Telehealth Be Hippa Compliant?

The HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 is United States legislation that provides data privacy and security provisions for safeguarding medical information. It is designed to reduce healthcare fraud and abuse by setting industry-wide standards for health care information on electronically shared information. When care managers are giving and receiving health care information through telehealth,  that is protected under HIPAA. Plus, importantly,  want to assure your clients that you are never sharing their private health care information, just like most people protect themselves from spam by not allowing cookies. 

Geriatric care managers can really benefit from telehealth during COVID-19 and after. If your agency does my employ, essential workers, you cannot see clients in person. But they must choose a product that is HIPAA compliant. 

Telehealth Protects Your Caregivers and Clients

 Even if your employees, nurses, and social worker, geriatric care managers, are essential workers they may be reluctant to expose themselves to COVID-19 risk. Many times your clients do not feel safe seeing your care managers. If you have clients in skilled nursing or assisted living you may be prohibited from seeing any clients at all- So how do you see your clients- through telehealth.

What is telehealth in geriatric care management

What is Telehealth? Telehealth refers to the exchange of medical information from one site to another through electronic communication to improve a patient’s health . Telehealth is the use of digital information and communication technologies, such as computers and mobile devices, to access health care services remotely and manage your health care. These may be technologies you use from home or that your doctor or in this case care manager uses to improve or support health care services.Geriatric care managers can see an older client in their residence and talk to the family caregiver or private caregiver without the care manager traveling to the home, especially during the pandemic when the care manager, client, and care provider may be exposed to the virus during the visit.

 

How Do Geriatric Social Workers, Nurses Use Telehealth?

Geriatric Social Workers use Telehealth to assist patients and families navigating healthcare and welfare decisions in these confusing and critical moments; they also coordinate or provide therapeutic services to the affected and their loved ones. Telehealth nursing is a tool for delivering nursing care remotely to improve efficiency and patient access to healthcare. A telehealth call or inquiry is more than just a phone call, however, and the nurses who respond to these calls are participating in the healthcare continuum.

The benefit of Telehealth by Family Caregivers

For caregivers who commit time and money to care for an aging loved one, telehealth can be a valuable lifeline. From a merely practical standpoint, it helps ease the burden of traveling to engage with health providers. Family caregivers with have full-time jobs can avoid taking excessive time off work to meet with you by using telehealth. Moreover, these services empower family members by giving them more opportunities to ask questions and take a proactive role in their loved ones’ care and recovery.

Long Distance Clients Really Benefit From Telehealth

Family Caregivers who live a long distance from their family members can often really benefit from telehealth as they can meet with the care manager from even thousands of miles away, get coaching on caregiving, ask questions about the care of their loved one, and report symptoms or status.

JOIN ME FOR MY NEW FREE WEBINAR

Successfully Market Your GCM COVID 19 Service

 

Learn to market and sign up new clients for your Aging COVId-19 coaching services for, both long-distance and local- adult children, based on science step and sound public health policies. Help family care providers faced with a pandemic, support an aging loved one through a COVID Hospitalization, and recovering at home.

 

Be able to sell care management COVID services that fill the gap  created by the federal government, state, county, cities and CDC‘s mixed messaging  have created, leaving family caregivers confused frustrated, with no clear path to safety from the raging pandemic,

 

Gain new customers and help aging families stay safe from COVID using care management’s most potent tool – navigation- through the potholed path they have right now.You will learn

 

  • How to create an e-newsletter with the right copy, to get out the word about your COVID 19 services

 

  • How to Use social media to alert aging family caregivers to the clear path your GCM agency provides to safety from the accelerating virus in the US

 

  • Be able to set up a Zoom webinar to teach local aging agencies and caregivers about your COVID coaching services and other local resources to assist caregivers in the community

 

  • Get local media coverage of your COVID -19 Coaching Services with radio and TV coverage plus pick local newspapers where adds may pay off to sell your COVID Products

  • How to generate word of mouth customers for your COVID -19 service using your continuum of care in your community

SIGN UP

You are invited to a Zoom webinar.
When: Sep 10, 2020, 02:00 PM Pacific Time (the US and Canada)
Topic: 5 Steps to Market Your COVID Coaching Service for Aging Families

Register in advance for this webinar:


After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

 

 

 

Filed Under: Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, Aging therapist, Blog, coronavirus, Coronavirus Coaching, Coronavirus emergency plan, coronavirus marketing, Coronavirus safety elders, coronavirus shut down, CORONAVIRUS Stay at Home Plan, Covid 19, COVID-19 & Care Management, Covid-19 GCM Products, Covid-19 mixed messaging, COVID-19 Webinar, FREE MARKETING WEBINAR, FREE WEBINAR, GCM Webinar, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, Home Care Emergency Coronavirus Plan, Long Distance Care & COVID-19, Long Distance Care technology, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Pandemic, Telehealth COVID-19products, Telehealth with ALCA, Telehealth with GCM, telemedicine, Webinar, Webinar ALCA GCM Tagged With: aging life care manager, aging life or geriatric care management, aging parent care, aging parent crisis, care manager, CORONAVIRUS WEBINAR, Covid-19 Telehealth, COVID-19 Telehealth product, free webinar, geriatric care & telehealth, Geriatric care management telehealth, geriatric care manager, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, nursing telehealth, Shelter in place & telehealth, social work telehealth, Webinar Telehealth

What Do Long Distance Care Families Need for Parent’s Sheltering in Place 4 COVID ?

August 15, 2020

 

 Long-Distance Care Providers need a safety net for themselves.

Adult Children who live at a distance from older family members need someone to cover the tasks to help their loved ones when needed.  During COVID -19 when all elders should shelter in place because they are the most vulnerable to the novel, deadly virus long-distance care providers really need help.

COVID -19 means it is best for people over 65 to have little contact with others. But not all the supplies can be ordered online. In fact with the Post office delivery slowing down, everyone who lives long distance, may wait a long time for delivery of needed items for COVID safety, especially if they live in a rural area,. These family caregivers may need someone to actually shop and pick meds at the last minute when needed food or meds do not arrive by mail. Having another person to accompany the elder on walks with a mask and safe distancing or a drive breaks up the tedium that can arise from the loneliness and isolation of sheltering in place.

 

Safety Net for Double Disasters

If there is an emergency on top of the pandemic- Long-distance care providers need someone to respond as they live far away. During this summer with double disasters like wildfires now in Colorado, hurricanes blowing up the east coast they need an emergency plan on top of the COVID threat. A surrogate must be ready to help the older loved one right away and get them out of harm’s way fast and check if it is even safe to go to a shelter.  What they need is an emergency safety net.

Call a Care Manager

If family at a distance does not have a friend or neighbor who can do this, they should consider the perfect emergency and daily safety net in a geriatric care manager. The Aging Life Care Association has an online search tool to find a professional by ZIP code. It also includes a list of questions to ask when you look to hire someone.

GCM can Provide & Supervise Caregivers’s For Covid Related Tasks

If the family caregivers chooses, the care manager will arrange for well screened aide, practicing covid saftey,  to do all the shopping, take the elder out in the neighborhood for a walk or a car ride, prepare

meals, engage in social connections, and do all the cleaning and disinfecting need daily with  the coronavirus threat . The GCM will visit aging parents on a regular basis to check on the health status of the elder in general and in relationship to Covid-19 exposure plus confer with their care providers along with texts calling and email them for supervision. Most of all they will regularly confer with with the family caregiver to get keep them up to date.

Find Help Now

The Long Distance care provider can have care providers from the care management agency care do all of these tasks, depending upon other back-up and care level of your older loved one. A care manager themselves, will directly monitor your loved one’s health, respond in emergencies like hospital admission, accompany them to a doctor and manage the care management care providers when you are not there and directly report to you. To find care managers go to the Aging Life Care Association 

Successfully Market Your GCM COVID 19 Service

 

If you are a geriatric care manager or Aging Professional learn to market and sign up new clients for your Aging COVID-19 coaching services for, both long distance and local- adult

children, based on science step and sound public health policies, using telehealth. Help family care providers faced with a pandemic, support an aging loved one through a COVID Hospitalization, and recovering at home.

 

Be able to sell care management COVID services that fill the gap  created by the federal government, state, county, cities and CDC ‘s mixed messaging  

created, leaving family caregivers confused frustrated, with no clear path to safety from the raging pandemic,

 

Gain new customers and help aging families stay safe from COVID using care management’s most potent tool – navigation- through the potholed path they have right

 

now.

 

You will learn

  • How to create an e-newsletter with the right copy, to get out the word about your COVID 19 services

 

  • How to use social media to alert aging family caregivers to the clear path your GCM agency provides to safety from the accelerating virus in the US

 

  • Be able to set up a Zoom webinar to teach local aging agencies and caregivers about your COVID coaching services and other local resources to assist caregivers in the community

 

  • Get local media coverage of your COVID -19 Coaching Services with radio and TV coverage plus pick local newspapers where adds may pay off to sell your COVID Products

 

  • How to generate word of mouth customers for your COVID -19 service using your continuum of care in your community

Sign Up

Filed Under: Aging, aging family crisis, aging life care manager, Blog, coronavirus, Coronavirus emergency plan, Coronavirus safety elders, CORONAVIRUS Stay at Home Plan, Covid 19, COVID-19 & Care Management, COVID-19 &Shelter in Place Plan, Covid-19 and GCM SERVICES, GCM COVID 19 Crisis, GCM Disaster Plan, GCM emergency procedures, Geriatric Care Manager, Geriatric Care Managers value, geriatric social worker, Loneliness, Long Distance Care & COVID-19, Long distance caregiver, Long Term Care Coverage, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Pandemic Tagged With: covid -19 geriatric care manager, covid & hurricanes, covid & wildfires, covid disaster emergency plan, covid safety net, COVID-19 prevention, COVID-19&LONG DISTANCE CARE, hiring geriatric care manager, long distance caregiver, long distance families, long-distance surrogate

Nursing Home Still Deaths Camps, 40,000 Dead – Feds Skew the Stats

June 14, 2020

Rachel Maddow once again, now the House of Representatives swept a spotlight on the despicable nursing home mortality rate of COVID -19. Nursing Home residents remain the largest % of deaths in the US. Although only 0.6 of the population they  represent a whopping  42 % of the deaths 

Feds Statistics Insanely Wrong

Highlighting the Do Nothing attitude that continues in the Trump federal government, CMS just released data collected from nursing home national wide that is cast as insanely wrong. Nursing home officials said their data were somehow scrambled, either because nursing home personnel reported in the wrong columns, or the numbers were loaded incorrectly somewhere between the CDC and CMS.

Yesterday the House Select Committee Briefing Confirms Urgent Need for Federal Action to Protect Nursing Homes from Coronavirus

Chaired by Rep. James E. Clyburn, they explored the devastating impact of the coronavirus pandemic on nursing home residents and workers, including the deaths of more than 40,000 Americans in nursing homes across the country. 

 Chairman Clyburn called on the Trump Administration to take action to protect nursing homes, stating:  “[W]e need the federal government to ensure our nursing homes have enough testing and personal protective equipment to stop the virus from spreading.  That means providing coordination and resources—not just leaving it up to the states.” 

Dr. David Grabowski of Harvard Medical School explained, “Rather than pushing the logistics and costs of testing and PPE to states and nursing homes, the federal government needs to own this issue.  The federal government should set a consistent policy across all U.S. nursing homes and then provide states and nursing homes with the resources to achieve it.”  He concluded, “The buck has to stop there.” 

The Trump administration failed to provide nursing homes with testing and protective equipment.

We have focused on a lack of PPE in hospitals but what about nursing homes. Asked if the federal government has done enough to stem the outbreak in nursing homes, Dr. Grabowski replied:  “Absolutely not, the guidance was not sufficient.  I’ve actually called it ‘non-guidance guidance’ in that there were no teeth or dollars behind it.  And if you don’t put logistics, if you don’t put costs into this guidance, if it’s just simply a theoretical set of guidance for the nursing homes and for the states; it’s not actually going to happen.”  He concluded, “I would have liked to have seen federal leadership.”

Dr. Grabowski stated that nursing homes in many states still “can’t get testing fast enough” and “are really struggling to find the tests.”  He explained, “The federal government should’ve put the testing in place and actually paid for it.”  He stated, “Until we get rapid and accurate testing for all staff and residents, we won’t be able to contain COVID.”

Mr. Carlson explained that nursing homes face serious shortages of PPE and that “shipments from FEMA have been a bit late and inadequate.”  He also explained that “the lack of federal coordination” has “impeded facilities’ ability to identify infected persons and to provide care.”

PPE Feds Send Looks like Blue Plastic Trash bags

NPR reported the PPE is either never delivered, flimsy, and much less than ordered or looks like remade trash bags. Instead of proper medical gowns, many packages hold large blue plastic ponchos.

In late April I blogged about the national COVID epidemic in nursing homes. It has been a month and a half and death toll, which was 10,000 rocketed up to, 40000, now – that’s 30,000 more deaths in just a month and a half.

Workers in the facilities still have inadequate PPE to protect themselves from the virus, and CMS in some fabulist attempt to look like it actually cares about Medicare and Medicaid, comes up with an outcome study that seems to be run by drunks or charlatans.

Now Rachel Maddow is showing us nothing has changed except the bodies are piled higher and higher in nursing homes. I care and I assume every senior agency that gets this does but put that caring into action. Write your Congressman, or maybe just adopt a nursing home and raise money in the community to buy PPE for them. This is, of course, pathetic but the government does not care, CMS does not care and President Trump certainly does not care about older people.

Filed Under: Aging deaths, aging family crisis, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, Aging therapist, ALCA COVID-19 Crisis, Assisted Living, Blog, care manager, case manager, CMS & Nursing Home Policy, Coronavirus safety elders, Covid 19, Covid-19 Death Nursing Homes, Covid-19 Nursing Home, geriatric care management emergency proceduress, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker Tagged With: aging life care manager, aging parent care, care manager, CMS COVID response, geriatric social worker, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, nursing home COVID statistics, Nursing home COVID testing, nursing home death, PPE in Nursing Homes, Skilled Nursing death

How to Sell VIP Clients Products They Want To Buy & Universal Precautions They Need

June 10, 2020

Universal Health Precautions and Concierge Services During a Pandemic

In this pandemic, you will have to give your potential clients assurance that your care providers can render concierge caregiving, companionship and personal care services and quality of life have completed the Corona Virus universal precautions training and have all necessary masks and gloves for each case. You should assure that caregivers should are required to take their own temperature prior to each shift and all shifts are available. In addition, you should tell clients or potential clients caregivers are able to pick up and deliver groceries, medications as well as do light housekeeping and cooking or you will arrange for meals to be delivered from the restaurant they choose. 

Concierge Client’s Can Afford You Due to Income Disparity in the US and NO LTC Under Medicare

Concierge customers are sadly the only customer who can afford you because Medicare does not cover long term care and, in an age of income disparity, 75% of all wealth is held in the hands of the upper 10%. They will choose you -the geriatric care manager over your competition if you have products and Four Seasons services to deliver those products- rivals do not have.

Products make sense to a high-end customer who is brand /product oriented in purchasing anything that reflects who they are. Think Gucci purses, Rolex or Montblanc watches Dior dresses.

All  care management customers in upper 10% relate to products not peace of mind

Rather than tell clients you do assessment– offer products they are seeking  – like relocation (moving an older parent VIP  Care Management, ( Discreet private care for a well known celebrity),Quality of Life (increasing the joy in an older person’s life who is dressed with Stay at Home Restrictions), Dementia Care, Home from the Hospital,( which many desperately need, especially during the COVID -19 epidemic), Medication Assessment,- End of Life Services,Products that pinpoint exactly what the older person needs are in a pandemic & on going and why the family is desperately calling for help. But these products need to be

Jaguar level, not a Hyundai buy. To do this, develop continuously integrated solutions through a product procedure placed in a company operation manual, along with all of your products so you ensure your staff can deliver, step by a step-that high-end product that the Concierge client just purchased and demands.

 

 

Free Webinar-

How to Sell VIP Clients a Menu of Products They Want To Buy During the Pandemic

Learn in this webinar:

COVID-19 Assurances You Must add to Your Products &Staff 

Income Inequality and No Coverage For Long Term Care Controls On Your GCM Market

Why Sell VIP Products rather than Geriatric Care Management
Why VIP GCM Clients prefer GCM Products
How to Develop a 4 Season Menu of Products
How to deliver 4 Seasons Service With VIP Products

VIP Products to Add to your Menu of Services

 

 

 

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Filed Under: Aging, aging family crisis, aging life business, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, ALCA Beneifits, Benefits of Geriatric Care Management, Blog, Care Management Products, care management start-up, care manager, case manager, Covid 19, elder care manager, Families, FREE WEBINAR, GCM Start -Up, Geriatric Care Management Business, geriatric care manager, geriatric care manager start up, geriatric social worker, Income inequality, marketing care management, marketing to the top 10$, marketing to upper 10%, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Selling GCM Business, Universal Precaution, VIP Products, Webinar, Webinar ALCA GCM Tagged With: aging life care start up, Aging Life Or GCM Products, care management products, case manager, Certified Senior Advisors, CMSA, Covid-19, eldercare manager, geriatric social worker, Income Inequality, marketing geriatric care, marketing geriatric care management, Medicare & coronavirus, Medicare non coverage LTC, nurse care manager, pandemic, products vs services

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