Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

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My DAD’s PTSD – Support Biden’s Infrastructure Plan Rebuilding VA Hospitals

May 24, 2021

 

Stalag-VII-A Moosburg Bavaria

My father was held in a prison camp during World War II. He was an officer and his camp only housed the higher ranks. He never spoke about the war. He was a World War II navigator shot down in Poland and transferred to Stalag-VII-A Moosburg Bavaria.  He returned home a broken man with PTSD, never took a bus, drove or flew on a plane again. His disability, like so many vets was untreated for 50 years. He worked as an advertising agent ala Mad Men and drank like Don Draper. Our family crumbled into a dysfunctional maelstrom, as most families do. Literally saved by the Palo Alto VA GRECC Program in his late 60’s, he lived a very good life with my family for his last 25 years.

He never sought VA  treatment for his severe PTSD for for 5 decades.

VA Hospital Changed My Dad’s Life After 50 years of Untreated PTSD

.When he came to live with me, after my brother and mother’s death, I got him enrolled in the VA and the incredible  GRECC  Program and he was treated at the  Menlo Park VA Hospital Menlo Park Division (MPD) campus where they  provide a  broad range of Veteran services, including a National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and San Jose VA Hospitals  for the rest of his life.

They turned his life around and made his last 2r years joyful ,mentally and physically health, plus allowed him to die at home through the  VA Homemaker and Home Health Aide Program

 The VA Hospitals  where he was treated do not need renovation but many many VA hospitals are falling apart.This led me to write an entire chapter in the 4th Edition of Handbook of Geriatric Care Management to help care managers to navigate through the VA.

Biden To Liberate $ to Rebuild aging VA Hospitals

President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan includes $18 billion to upgrade and replace aging Veterans Affairs hospitals, but the agency needs five times that much to bolster facilities and medical staff, a Democratic lawmaker said on Thursday.

Mark Takano, chairman of the House of Representatives Veterans’ Affairs Committee told reporters   , the VA’s 1,700 hospitals, clinics and medical facilities had a median age of 58 years, compared with just 11 years for private hospitals in the United States, he said, noting that 69% of VA hospitals were more than 50 years old.

Support Biden’s Infrastructure Plan to help caregivers and rebuild the VA

The infrastructure package, which must be approved by Congress, would also help the roughly 200,000 veterans who leave military service each year to transition to civilian jobs, and boost funding to help the estimated 2.5 million veteran-owned small businesses, officials said.

As so many geriatric care managers and Home care agencies serve aging Vets , take this memorial day to contact your congressman and senators to support Biden’s infrastructure plan , to help rebuild the crumbling VA hospitals,which is now going to The Senate after being passed in the House. The Senate republicans are not going to allow it into law. Support this plan with it caregiver infrastructure Plan, so that you have more resources to help your aging clients.

 Connect with Cathy Jo Cress MSW

  • Subscribe to my YouTube channel, Geriatric Care Management, at youtube.com/channel/UCaoHdozwS0RvKD23YPpuHIw
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  • Explore my GCM Classes 

 

Filed Under: Aging, Biden Infrastructure Bill Passing, Biden's VA Infrastructure Bill, Blog, COVID-19 VA deaths, Dysfunctional aging family, Emergency Plan, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, Memorial Day, Memorial Day and Aging Veterans, National Veterans Legal Aid Group, VA benefits and geriatric care management, VA Benefits PTSD, VA Caregivers, VA GRECC Program, VA Home Care, VA Hospitals crumbling, VA PTSD, Veterans Administration, Written Geriatric Assessment Tagged With: aging life or geriatric care manager, aging parent care, aging parent crisis, Biden's VA Infrastructure Plan, COVID-19 VA Facilities, geriatric care manager, GRECC Program, Memorial Day, Memorial Day WWII Vets, National Center for PTSD, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, PTSD adult children, PTSD Family Caregivers, PTSD in Vets World War II, Stalag VII A Moosburg Bavatia, VA Homemakers Health Aide

Using Telehealth During Covid? Learn to Market GCM COVID -19 Coaching

January 28, 2021

COVID-19 Coaching Service for Aging Families

If you have designed COVID -19  coaching services for your agency or attended my last webinar to learn how to create one using  telehealth coaching ( If you missed it click on this link to watch  )

Take the next step

 Take the next step and learn to market COVID coaching and sign up new clients for your Aging COVID-19 coaching services, for both long-distance and local- adult children. These services need to be based on science and sound public health policies. Help family care providers faced with a pandemic, support aging love ones through a COVID Hospitalization and recovering at home.

Mixed Messaging by Feds creates Chaos 4 Aging Families

Be able to offer care management COVID services that help  fill the gap that the new administration is attempting to recalibrate from the last administrations bungled in  the federal government, state, county, cities, and CDC‘s mixed messaging, leaving family caregivers confused and 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 to safety right now.

Subscribe to my YouTube channel , Geriatric Care Management, to learn more about marketing geriatric care management 

Filed Under: Aging Families and Disaster, Blog, Coronavirus Coaching, Coronavirus emergency plan, Coronavirus safety elders, coronavirus shut down, Covid 19 Webinar, COVID-19 & Care Management, Covid-19 and GCM SERVICES, COVID-19 Recover at Home Plan, COVID-19 Webinar, email newsletter, Emergency Plan, FREE WEBINAR, GCM COACHING SKILLS, GCM COVID 19 Crisis, GCM Disaster Plan, GCM emergency procedures, George Bush, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker Tagged With: aging family, aging family crisis, aging parent care, aging parent crisis, care manager, coronavirus and seniors, Coronavirus disaster plan, covid -19 geriatric care manager, COVID COACHING, COVID discharge coaching, COVID-19 coaching services, Covid-19 Telehealth, COVID-19 Telehealth product, GCM closed downs COVID, GCM Telehealth Product, geriatric care manager, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Shelter in place & telehealth

My Dad & Veterans Day , Prison Camp,PTSD, VA GRECC Program

November 11, 2020

Chris--pop-87-.JPG

 

I moved my own Dad so let me tell you our story on Veterans Day.

It is key to his move. He was a World War II navigator shot down in Poland and transferred to

.  He returned home a broken man with PTSD, never took a bus, drove, or flew on a plane again. His disability, like so many vets, was untreated for 50 years. He worked as an advertising agent ala Mad Men and drank like Don Draper. Our family crumbled into a dysfunctional maelstrom, as most families do.

VA GRECC SAVED THE DAY

Finally, after my mother died, I talked him into going to the VA where he did get treatment through the GRECC program. My brother who lived with him died, my Dad found his body and the house caught fire, I then moved my Dad out to a board and care and had the house rebuilt. However, it was Edgar Alan Poe’s House of Usher The perfect storm of 89 flooded the whole house again just like Hurricane Sandy. We lived on the bay off the Jersey Coast, since devastated by the rising ocean.

On Christmas Eve I got him an emergency flight to California with only his clothes and he moved in with us for 20 years, until his death. Was it a good move-?

Yes, it was a great move.

My Dad had privacy, although he was on the floor with his 8th-grade granddaughter who dearly loved him- now 40. They both had their own bathrooms. He became the center of the family when he had been a distant removed father. The great-grandchildren Julia & Joseph, my brother’s son Chris and my children Jill and Kali adored him and he loved them. He was “ Pop”.

Dec-Xmas-all-of-us-.jpg

So on Veterans Day, I would like to give you my own fraught story and remind you of the horrible struggle veterans go through salted by the anguish visited on their families. But there is a great part of the VA and its GRECC. So happy Veterans Day Dad and so glad you moved in with us and had the GRECC program to support us all.

Filed Under: Aging, aging family crisis, aging life care manager, ALCA Beneifits, Dysfunctional aging family, Emergency Plan, Euology, Long Distance Care, moving parent in your home, PTSD Vets, VA benefits, VA Benefits & geriatric care managementt, VA benefits and geriatric care management, VA GRECC Program, Veteran's Day, Veterans Administration Tagged With: elder relocation, moving parent, PTSD in family caregivers, PTSD in Vets World War II, Stalag 17, Stalag-VII-A Moosburg Bavaria, VA GRECC Program, VA PTSD, Veterans Day

Emergency Go Binder -Family Caregivers Need One in Pandemic

August 13, 2020

   In An Emergency, I  Panicked

I live in Santa Cruz County, Ca. , where the disaster of COVID stalks us but we had a double disaster with one of the 30 fires begun by lightning strikes all over California. Our fire set the Santa Cruz mountains, with ancient 3000-year-old redwoods, ablaze, and caused 70,000 evacuations ,as the firefighters did not have enough fire personnel to fight the fire. There were so many fires statewide that all firefighters in the state were not enough to fight the blazes. In addition to the horror, the fast-spreading fire, our three assigned planes to drop water on the inferno, could not fly as smoke and fog prevented it. They went to other California fires.

I Had No Grab and GO, Binder

When all this was announced by emergency alerts we were told to prepare to evacuate too. In spite of just teaching how to put together a go binder for COVID- I had no go binder myself. I had no list of what I would take in an emergency from a 5 bedroom house with multiple family heirlooms, original art by children, grandchildren, and now famous friends, I had never scanned the multiple  photographs of our family in frames to GOOGLE PHOTOS  all over the house and those critical important documents like our trust, birth certificates, passports, insurance info in filing to add a go binder. I  never made a GO Binder. I am doing it now when the fire is 30% contained. 

Prepare for Double Disasters Now

In emergency situations, people sometimes do not think rationally like me. We never know how we are going to react in an emergency until it actually happens. In order to prepare for any situation, hurricanes & COVID, Fires &COVID- creating a grab-and-go binder should be an important part of your shelter in place plan for aging friends or relatives.

With COVID,the older person who is sheltering in place, as safe as the family and elder have been, can still contract COVID and be rushed to the hospital in an emergency. But on top of COVID other emergencies like storms wildfires, floods happen on the top of the pandemic. Think of this summer where hurricanes have already spun up the east coast, making it a double cataclysm of elders’ and family caregivers’ lives.

What to put in Go- Binder

You want and binder with all the emergency contacts, documents like advanced directives, DNR power of attorney and family contacts, You the family cannot physically go into the hospital or evacuate but this Go binder can take your place. With important information about your family member when they are admitted without you by their side. Your go- binder should contain your family members’ most important information and documents. This will include.

  • Medical information
  • Emergency Contact List
  • Advanced Directives 
  • Critical medical, insurance, social security, Trust/will docs                                                                                                             
  • Check out The new 5th edition of my GCM Operations Manual with  5 new COVID-19 Coaching products to use with Telehealth to Assist Family Caregivers to guide older Loved ones to:

  • Shelter in Place in Long Distance Family
  • Shelter in Place in Long Local Family
  • Recover at  Home If Do not enter the Hospital
  • Recover after discharge from the hospital in Long Distance Family
  • Recover after discharge from the hospital if Local Family
  • Find Out More Below

GCM Manual New 5th edition

Filed Under: Advanced Directives and Covid-19, advanced directives& COVID-19, Aging, aging family crisis, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, ALCA COVID-19 Crisis, ALCA Disaster Plan, ALCA Products for COVID_19, Blog, Coronavirus Coaching, Coronavirus emergency plan, Coronavirus safety elders, coronavirus shut down, CORONAVIRUS Stay at Home Plan, COVID, COVID-19 & Care Management, COVID-19 & Wildfire, COVID-19 &Shelter in Place Plan, Covid-19 and GCM SERVICES, COVID-19 Emergency Go Binder, COVID-19 Emergency Plan, Covid-19 GCM Products, COVID-19 Hospital Discharge Plan, COVID-19 Plus Hurricane, COVID-19 Recover at Home Plan, elder care manager, Emergency Go Binder, Emergency Plan, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric social worker, nurse advocate, nurse care manager Tagged With: 5th edition GCM OPERATIONS MANUAL, ADVANCED DIRECTIVES & COVID-19, aging parent crisis, care manager, case manager, COVID GCM Procedures, COVID- 19 GO Binder, COVID-19 PRODUCTS, Covid-19 Telehealth, COVID-19& LONG DISTANCE CARE, crisis with aging parents, geriatric care manager, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, parent care crisis

What are the 5 Steps to a Successful Covid-19 Concierge Client Inquiry ?

June 20, 2020

 

 

How Not to Lose a New Client at an Inquiry

Closing the sale means the client signing your contract and giving you a deposit. An inquiry is the most critical point in closing the sale or opening a case. A successful inquiry means taking successful steps to increase your aging life or geriatric care management business. 

The Desperate Calls You will Get

With many states lifting COVID-19 restrictions, in spite of COVID-19 still present, people will travel again. You will get desperate calls from adult children visiting older family members and seeing first-hand, how unprepared their vulnerable aging parents are if COVID-19 explodes in the fall or sooner. They probably will be reluctant to move their older parent to Assisted Living after the high incidence of coronavirus in these facilities no matter how many amenities they provide. Here are steps to success for an inquiry or any call about your services

Take These Steps to Convert Inquiry to New Client

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, to provide a safe coronavirus plan for sheltering in place, if the pandemic, still here, roars back again, determine the level of care if that is needed and level of GCM monitoring to sell your services.
2. You sell these services by convincing the caller that you offer a highly personalized and compassionate approach to the family and older clients. 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 30-minute complimentary consultation call, you will help them make sound decisions based on reality and assessment. 

The GCM sells all of this through this free 30 -minute complimentary consultation done by a compassionate and highly skilled professional the director of your agency.

 

Learn the 5 Clinical Steps  to Signing Up These families

Sign UP For MY Free Webinar 

 

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

 

Sales have severely declined during  COVID_19. Now that many states are lifting restrictions, 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 or one of

the 7.5 million businesses that will fail in the next 3 months from COVID-19 

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

SIGN UP FOR FREE

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: aging family crisis, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, care manager, case manager, complementary consultatiom, Complimentary Consultation, complimentary consultation COVID-19, coronavirus, coronavirus marketing, Coronavirus safety elders, CORONAVIRUS Stay at Home Plan, COVID-19 & Care Management, elder care manager, Emergency Plan, FREE MARKETING WEBINAR, FREE WEBINAR, GCM COVID 19 Crisis, GCM products in COVID-19, GCM Webinar, Geriatric Care Management Business, geriatric care management emergency proceduress, Geriatric Care Manager, INFECTION CONTROL & COVID-19, inquiry, inquiry COVID-19, Intake, Intake COVID-19, Long distance caregiver Tagged With: aging family crisis, aging life inquiry, aging life or GCM inquiry, aging life or geriatric care manager, care management intake, care manager, care manager eldercare manager, case manager, Certified Senior Advisors, client inquiry, Coronavirus disaster plan, COVID_19 inquiry, COVID-19 -inquiry, COVID-19 intake, GCM inquiry, GCM intake, geriatric care manager, intake, intake Aging Life, long distance care provider, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, social distancing covid-19

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