Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

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GCM Agency Lifespan Wins Top Awards

April 11, 2021

Geriatric Care Management Home Care Agency Wins National Award

Lifespan a 35-year-old geriatric care agency in Santa Cruz, California won prestigious awards from both national and local groups this month. Home Care Pulse awarded the care management home care agency ” Provider of Choice Award” for being best in class for rendering quality care to their clients, being trustworthy, and providing outstanding home care services the award was based on customer and staff surveys. Locally they also won the Santa Cruz Good Times Award for “Best of Homecare “award while competing with all home care agencies in their county.

Lifespan helped build trust during the “annus horibillus ” year of COVID  through their own website.Clients could see their extreme COVID safety precautions prominently provided on the navigation bar of their website. 

Outstanding Home Care in the year of COVID

The award recognized their outstanding home care services providing quality care through impeccably trained COVID safety-equipped and monitored home care staffing during the pandemic, building community trust. Clients in Santa Cruz, California needing care management services during COVID and ongoing were provided geriatric care management services developed over the agencies 35-year history and fine-tuned for clients’ needs during the epidemic

Quality of Life as Well as Quality of Care

The agency continued to offer Well Being – a service for lonely and isolated seniors who dramatically suffered during the pandemic from sheltering in place. Lifespan not only served the quality of care needs of clients but also the Quality of Life Needs  answering isolation and loneliness in a pandemic

Videos Showing Home Care Safety Build Trust

Finally, they showed the community their excellence and safety through videos in their email newsletters for 6 months, done with a phone by a talented staff member. The agency provides Quality of Life activities and adds videos about  Lifespan‘s Well Being Program. They upload them to their YouTube channel another great way they build trust with their agency. Market safety from Covid-19.

During the continuing but diminishing pandemic, as clients begin to use services like care managers and home care again, it is critical that you build that trust by showing customers you are safe. In Lifespan’s case, you can also win awards for this.

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, Blog, Covid Safety Video, COVID-19 Safety, Families, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric social worker, home care, Home Care Award, Home Care Covid Safety, Home Care Pulse, Home Care Trust, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, PPE, PPE Nursing Homes, Private Duty Home Care, Provider of Choice Award, Quality of Life, Videos Tagged With: aging family, aging life and geraitric care manager, aging life care management, aging life care manager, aging parent care, care manager, case manager, Community Award, COVID Safety Precautionss, geriatric care manager, geriatric care manager private duty home care, Home Care Pulse, Home Care Pulse Awards, Home Care Trust, Lifespan, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Outstanding Home Care, private duty home care

Can a Caregiver Assessment Avoid UnnecessaryPlacement ?

April 9, 2021

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When a Caregiver is so Overwhelmed that A SNF is a Choice but a Very Bad Choice

If the family is so overwhelmed by the care that they are considering placement, this threat should trigger the GCM to do a caregiver assessment immediately, found in the Handbook of Geriatric Care Management If the GCM is called to relocate an older person and the underlying cause seems to be caregiver burnout, this can be another trigger to use this valuable GCM tool. By using a caregiver assessment the geriatric care manager may find that building respite for the caregiver, through other relative or paid caregivers, a caregiver support group, or coaching the caregiver to make changes that make her/ his tasks more bearable and doable and avoid inappropriate placement of the older person

Avoid Elder Physical Abuse Though a Caregiver Assessment

 

If caregiver abuse is suspected, a caregiver assessment is a critical immediate tool. This is a situation where the GCM must contact Adult Protective Services, following their own state’s laws. Elder abuse can be triggered by caregiver stress in some situations. Depression that reaches a clinical level in a caregiver can be predictive of elder abuse of an elderly client can prompt a GCM to do a caregiver assessment.  You should also do a geriatric depression scale at the same time. Use the GDS and the caregiver assessment to help both the caregiver and the care receiver and avoid the risk of physical abuse and prevent involvement of APS making the caregiver and care receiver’s lives even more painful and chaotic and risking placement in a nursing home.

Mrs. Handy has Two Dads in Her Head

Let’s take the example of Mrs. Handy, a caregiver daughter caregiver She calls a GCM as she is about to place her Dad. Besieged by so many other stressors,  her own health is deteriorating because she cannot get any sleep, due to her Dad going to bed so late and her inability to rise above her old self when her Dad was 40 and she was 19 and what he said she did. Now he is 70, very impaired with vascular dementia, incontinent and she needs to be who she is in the here and now a woman of 40, caring for an impaired Dad in her 70’s. The care manager coached her to set a new boundary for him to go to bed early. She needs help in getting rid of the old parent in her head and putting the 70-year-old demented incontinent parent before her. In addition, she sees her doctor for depression, joins an online caregiver support group, and asks siblings in other towns to take her Dad once a month for a week. Her Dad is not moved to skilled nursing. This is what a geriatric care manager can do for her to help avoid unnecessary placement.

Find out more on my playlist “Caregiver Assessment” on My Youtube channel Geriatric Care 

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Filed Under: Aging, aging family crisis, aging life business, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, Alzheimers, care manager, caregiver, Caregiver Burn Out, caregiver burnout, caregiver coaching, caregiver mental health, CAREGIVER RESOUCES, coaching caregivers Tagged With: aging family, aging life care manager, aging life geriatric care, aging parent care, aging parent crisis, barrier to caregiver assessment, care manager, caregiver assessment, caregiver burden, caregiver burn out, caregiver burnout, caregiver coaching, caregiver overwhelm, case manager, elderabuse, geraitric assessment, geriatric care manager, innappropriate placement, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, secondary stressors, unnecessary placement

Start-Up Geriatric Care Management Marketing and PR Checklist

April 7, 2021

 

To grow an ALCA or Geriatric Care management business, you must use-  marketing and public relations (PR). ( usually social workers and nurses have never done )Here is a helpful start –

 

 Start-Up Geriatric Care Management PR/ Marketing Checklist

1. Brand Identity- including logo design and collateral material design

Services needed to complete

Research competition, develop key differentiating features, develop a brand positioning statement, and develop business names, graphic design for the logo.

, colors for business communication. Consider consulting a branding firm.

2. Business Identity            –

Get coordinated business card envelopes, note cards, and folders                                  

Services needed to complete

Graphic design, printing, and delivery

3. Products sheets or Sell sheets, Brochures

Services needed to complete- Copywriting, graphic design, printing, and delivery

4. Identified and 3rd party targets – including a prospect profile

Services needed to complete-

Identify targets ( elder law attorneys, assisted living, concierge physicians, trust/wealth management departments) in your services area.  Research develops prospect profiles, mailing lists, key factors in specific communication messages per target audience. Add to marketing excel sheets.

Want to know more?

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: 3rd party targets, Aging, Aging Family, aging family crisis, aging life business, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, ALCA Disaster Plan, brand, branding, branding ALCA business, Branding GCM Business, care management start-up, care manager, complementary consultatiom, coronavirus marketing, e-newsletter, GCM emergency procedures, GCM Sales, GCM Speaker's Bureau, GCM Start -Up, GCM Webinar, Geriatric Care Management Business, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, Logo, marketing, Marketing aging life care, marketing ALCA /GCM, marketing care management, Marketing copy, marketing geriatric care management, Marketing plan, Marketing Sell sheets, Marketing Strategy, Marketing to top 10%, Marketing Tools 2021, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Public Relations, social media marketing, START UP, Start-up Marketing, Third Party Tagets Tagged With: aging family, aging life care manager, Benefits vs Features, Brand identiy, care manager, geriatric care manager, geriatric care manager private duty home care, home care care manager, Home care marketing, marekting, marketing geriatric care management, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, PR for geriatric care management

How Can Someone with Dementia Have a Better Quality of Life on a Holiday ?

April 2, 2021

 

Reminiscence and Story Telling

 

This Easter holiday is the perfect occasion to engage elders with dementia. The role of storytelling and reminiscence is very important for elders, as they look back on their life and holidays bring strong long-term memories. It gives them a chance to socialize as they tell their story. It also means someone usually listens or documents. That magically gives the elder social interaction and connectedness. So many Easter rituals can prompt stories for elders with some level of dementia. The ritual of dying easter eggs, finding easter baskets on Easter morning, dressing up for the local Easter Parade, eating ritual foods at Easter dinner or at Easter Brunch. Whether the older person is actually participating or watching, these rituals can prompt stories from their long-term memory.

 

Elders sharing stories means passing on history.

This gives the older person a chance to give the larger picture of their life and family history to children and grandchildren or extended family, who may have not heard all the details of their grandparents or parents’ life before- what they cooked, what they did on holidays like Easter. So the quality of the older person of both the older person and the aging family is increased through oral history and reminiscence

The aging professional can suggest family or friends just sitting down and prompting a story or oral history using  technology like your phone

Even elders with Alzheimer’s can find new joy with Reminiscence

When an elderly person develops Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia, the short-term memory is frequently affected but long-term memories can remain as intact and vivid as they have always been during the course of the patient’s life. As a result, a family can use a practice called reminiscence therapy to help combat the frustration, confusion, and depression that can often accompany dementia and even bring joy to the older person

What is reminiscence therapy?

 Reminiscence therapy is like a therapy session where the elderly person will spend time recalling memories of his or her life, perhaps telling stories about things that happened and events the person can recall.

Sometimes senior experts or family members can use photos, familiar objects, or other such things to help jog the memory of the patient. Some therapists and family members can a scrapbook of a person’s life, including photos, letters, and other such personal memorabilia. This becomes a visual biography of the patient’s life and helps the older person remember who he or she is.

How does this quality of life therapy help? Almost all elderly men and women can start feeling discouraged and frustrated with their memory issues. Reminiscence can give peace and acceptance of the current situation by helping the person remember that he or she has had a good and full life. It also prompts communication skills of elderly people who otherwise may not feel very compelled to open up and share anything with anyone else.

Dementia and Reminiscence of Easter

So this Easter holiday try reminiscence. People with dementia can receive a richer quality of life when people actually listen to them. They feel as their thoughts and feelings actually matter. For anyone who has an elderly loved one suffering from dementia, this benefit alone can make reminiscence therapy a form of joy for a very confused elder. So when you dye Easter eggs, create easter baskets, do an Easter egg hunt, serve an Easter brunch or dinner, get them involved, let them watch, allow them to help if possible, serve them ritual food or to taste it and ask when how they experienced these rituals, when they were young. If you have old albums of pictures from their childhood of them at Easter, look and the photos with them. Then listen.

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YouTube channel:  Website: https://cathycress.com/

 

Blog: https://www.cathycress.com/blog/

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Twitter: https://twitter.com/cathyjocress

Email: cressgcm@got.net

 

 

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Filed Under: Adult children, Aging, Aging Family, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, Dementia, Dementia & Holidays, Easter, Easter and Reminiscence, Easter Rituals, Emotional Quality of Life, Families, GCM Working With Aging Family, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric care manager, Good Death, Holiday Rituals in Aging Family, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Quality of Life on Easter Holiday, Quality of Life with Dementia, Reminiscence Therapy, Spiritual Quality of Life Tagged With: aging family, aging parent, aging parent care, aging technology, ancrestory.com, assessing for quality of life, care plan, care plan interventions, family caregivers, Family Caregivers using technology, flip video, genealogy, geriatric care management, geriatric care manager, geritaric care manager, grandfather, grandmothers, grandparents, increasing quality of life, LCSW, oral history, oral history and quality of life, oral history and You Tube, parent care, Quality of Life, quality of life assessment, reminicence and elder, Reminiscence and 4th of Jul;y, Reminiscence and Dementia, Reminiscence on the Holidays, storytelling and elders, technology for caregivers, You Tube, You Tube and storytelling

Critical Success Factor for Start Up Care Management Aging- Serve Top10%

March 29, 2021

Who Are Your Aging Life Customers?

 

Your customers need to be in the top 10% economically and here’s why. That is how you will make money, stay solvent and thrive. To start a Geriatric Care Management business PLUS to write a major section of your  GCM business plan, you must describe the customers you intend to serve -your market assessment or opportunity. That tells you and investors whether you will have enough customers to make money. The Concierge Client who is in the top 10% financially is your client.  Start your business plan and your intention to make money, with a definition of your ideal client. Example: Woman, 85 years old with chronic care needs who has an income or liquid assets of $500,000 or more.

Upper 10% Customer Needs to be Your Mission and Intention- Why?

You want to list the customers who will reward you the most financially. This has to be in your mission and deeply in your mind. The “Why” is Medicare does not cover geriatric care management which is about expensive as a plumber or more critically – home care-at $4000-6000 a month -as expensive as the average closing cost on a home PER MONTH. Only the top 10% can afford that. So, make this your mental intention because you are running a business whose very blood is cash flow. Without the profit motive and profit, your new business stands a major chance of failure

Ideal Clients and Third-Parties You Need for Success

 How many of these ideal clients are in the area you wish to serve? You need to do an analysis of the age and income levels. Generally, geriatric care management customers are over age 85 or are disabled younger people with incomes in the range of the top 10% in your community. One gateway to your customers is the local overstressed adult children of clients, long-distance caregivers with family members who need help and live in your community, Another door is third parties, such as trust officers, attorneys, conservators, or guardians, who refer you to their elderly clients or adult children, as a trusted GCM’s, 

If You Want To Start an Aging Life or Geriatric Care Management Business you need to know you can make money before you start.

You need to do market research to define the size of the market in the area where your business will be located (e.g., how many people over age 85 live in Modesto, California, how many third-party target markets such as trust departments are in the town?). This type of demographic information may be available from U.S. Census Bureau reports local Area Agencies on Aging, local chambers of commerce, local hospitals, and even members of the local media who have done their own surveys. You can use the Internet to retrieve U.S. Census data in your area, and in addition, you can Google your State Department of Aging, find your local Department of Aging, and then find all senior services that may have data on older people in your area.

 

You Need To Understand Billing and Cash Flow for Success

You also need to know about billing. You might be making good money but if your cash flow is not coming in to pay your bills and staff, you stand a new chance of failure. Care managers who are most often social workers and nurses, often have an ethical dilemma with billing and are filled with guilt. That guilt keeps them from billing every hour and leaving time billed off their timesheet to help a client. This leaves them hurting their business and their bottom line over the short term – not being able to pay their bills and themselves each month. If this continues long term- the GCM is faced finally,like a slowly dying tree in a drought , death by bankruptcy.

Check out my  Online GCM Business Class which includes 10 modules on starting your GCM Business including two modules on financial management so you do not go under and lose your dream start-up

  • LEARN MORE ABOUT LEARNING GCM BUSINESS SKILLS WITHOUT GETTING AN MBA 

  • Check out our affordable price or choose a monthly payment plan

 

Find Out More 

 

Skills you will learn in My GCM Business Class

  • GCM ALCA billing skills to develop a billing system that allows you to bill 85% of your time, control your cash flow, invoice promptly to make a profit
  • GCM financial forecasting skills to develop a 3-year financial forecast Excel spreadsheet to track your basic profit and expenses and to track the number of clients and billable hours needed to break even make a profit, pay back loans, hire new staff, and take a salary yourself
  • GCM organizational design skills to create your business flow chart and job descriptions, and outline how power flows down your staff to deliver gold standard care to clients
  • GCM marketing survey skills to pinpoint your area’s upper 10% clients and 3rd-party referrals to market, to make your business profitable
  • GCM competitive analysis skills to set the fee per hour your market will bear for your services and to gather information from each, to position your services vs your competition’s so clients will choose you
  • GCM timeline skills to identify and list (in a manageable, doable order), major tasks to complete before you open your business
  • GCM business planning skills to write a 13-part business plan to create a blueprint of measurable goals for your business’s financial success
  • GCM marketing skills to create a marketing plan to develop lead sources, conduct leadgeneration, launch social media and conduct content marketing to gain new customers
  • GCM sales skills to position your agency to sell your menu of services
    through benefits to 3rd parties and clients through cold calling, 1-1 sales meetings, and inquiries, by knowing how to close the sale and sign the contract
    • LEARN MORE ABOUT LEARNING GCM BUSINESS SKILLS WITHOUT GETTING AN MBA 

    • Check out our affordable price or choose a monthly payment plan

    Find out More 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Aging, aging life business, ALCA business, ALCA Business Skills, care manager, cash flow, Concierge aging clients, concierge clients, GCM Business Flow Chart, GCM Business Skills, Geriatric Care Management Business, geriatric care manager, high end clients, value proposition Tagged With: aging business, aging family, aging life and geraitric care manager, aging life care manager, aging life geriatric care billing data base, barrier to billing, Billing 85%, billing for geriatric care management, business start up, care manager, case manager, critical success factor For GCM or Aging Life business, Ethical Dilemma with Billing, GCM billing, GCM customers, GCM making a profit, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, My Geriatric Care Management Operations Manual, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Profitable aging life business, profitable ALCA business, reaching top 10% elder, target market for GCM customers, webinar billing care management hours

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