Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

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Advanced Directives AND COVID-19- Do You Know When To Initiate in the Pandemic

May 5, 2020

Covid-19 Makes Signing Advanced Directives Critical

Advanced directives are even more critical with COVID-19 patients, who are often elders. The New York Times had a story about an older woman who was suffering from Covid-19 When she entered the hospital no one asked about advanced directives. After several weeks on a ventilator, the hospital asked about advanced directives, she had none. All her elderly sisters could recall was what she had said about dying when she was young.

WHEN DO YOU DISCUSS ADVANCE DIRECTIVES?

 

Advanced Directives should be part of your initial psychosocial assessment. Once the COVID-19 diagnosis is known with an elderly client, the care manager who has added end of life services to their agency is often the one who will initiate and guide advance care planning discussions. As difficult as these discussions may be, the burden on the family is significantly lessened if decisions about advance care planning are made before the client’s condition worsens.

Hopefully, this has already been done but many people put it off for fear of death. A recent study found that less than 50% of severely or terminally ill patients had an advance directive in their medical record.

Advance Directives

 Advance directives are legal documents that allow clients to make decisions about their health care and finances in advance of when they are not mentally or physically able to do so. These documents must be signed, dated, and witnessed naming another person to make decisions for you.

Your job as a care manager is the make sure the dying client has these documents:

• A durable power for an attorney for healthcare 

• A living will 

• A do not resuscitate order DNR (efforts to restart the heart after it has stopped 

If the client does not have these legal documents and wishes to create

them, the Geriatric Care Manager will suggest that the documents be put in place with the oversight and consultation of an elder law attorney. But if hospitalization is imminent, getting the patient to consider signing with legal consultation maybe your own option, with the family’s permission. 

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Join Me in My Latest Webinar About Products For GCM Clients Especially Covid 19 

How to Sell VIP Clients a Menu of Products They Want To Buy During COVID-19 & After

When May 7th

Time 2:PM PST -3:30 PM PST

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Why Sell VIP Products rather than Geriatric Care Management
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Filed Under: Advanced Directives, Advanced Directives and Covid-19, advanced directives& COVID-19, Aging, Aging Community & Covid-19, Aging deaths, aging family crisis, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, Aging therapist, ALCA COVID-19 Crisis, ALCA Products for COVID_19, Covid 19, Covid-19 Death Nursing Homes, Covid-19 Nursing Home, Death and Dying Care Management, death and dying care manager Tagged With: Advanced Directives, ADVANCED DIRECTIVES & COVID-19, aging life care manager, aging parent crisis, care manager, case manager, coronavirus and seniors, COVID-19 Deaths, COVID-19 deaths SNF's, death and dying in COVID-19, durable power of attorney, end of life, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, nurse advocate, nurse care manager

Medicare For All Includes Long Term Care – Perhaps Pay Attention Now With -Covid 19 Raging ?

March 25, 2020

Long Term Care Not Covered by Medicare

Geriatric Care management and home care, among other critical services tin aging are not covered Long term care services, is not covered by Medicare. In Bernie Sanders & Elizabeth Warren’s Plan, Medicare for all would cover long term care, a point that the Washington Post said that Sanders did not emphasize enough.

Medicare For ALL Would Cover Long Term Care 

Time Magazine, recently reported that Covid-19 ‘s effect right now is making Medicare for all seem like the present need nor an unaffordable dream . The “Department of Housing and Urban Development halted foreclosures and evictions during the emergency; the Department of Education slashed federal student loan interest rates to zero and will allow borrowers to completely suspend payments if needed; Congress is negotiating a plan to send direct cash payments to families, and a version of paid sick leave just became law.”

What If We Had Medicare For All During Covid 19 Pandemic?

If we had Medicare for all during the Covid 19 pandemic, we would be better able to disburse funds in emergency situations and to purchase necessary machinery, such as ventilators ( that only the president seems to be able to dispense through the Defence Production Act & does not, during a crisis and get them where they need, like the 30,000 needed and missing in New York) face masks that as so needed that the CVC recommended bandanas and a 10-year-old student in Boston is sewing herself the height of the pandemic right now.

Unlike our current health care system, Medicare for All would include specific funding for dealing with pandemics or other health emergencies that could be distributed quickly without requiring additional legislation of presidential planning, which seems not to have happened at all. The United States cannot be left unprepared for mass health risks like COVID-19. It is time to put in place Medicare for All and better protect the health of the American public.

 

Ethical Dilemma

This lack of Medicare covering Long term care leaves geriatric care managers in an ethical dilemma of being able to only be able to serve the upper 10% and leaving 90% of seniors and thus under 64 with chronic care needs like MS, unserved.

 

Elizabeth Warren’s plan for Medicare for all could cost 20 Trillion over 10 years. Existing Medicare over the 10-year period would cost 16 trillion. The bill we are just passing in Congress to fund is 2 Trillion. We will need another bill. Are all the mounting deaths from Covid 19, 55,000 people with Covid 19 and counting, disruption to business, our lives and the hospital really worth not paying attention to Medicare for All- which it looks like we just might be able to afford?

Find out about this ethical dilemma and what care managers must do to serve the upper 10%, and ignore lower 90%, who have no long-term care under Medicare .

Since geriatric care management must be privately paid for, in the absence of coverage under present Medicare, in spite of our moral dilemma

Learn 5 critical success steps to start and run a profitable, GCM business

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Ethical Dilemma in serving only Top 10%

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Filed Under: ALCA Disaster Plan, ALCA Ethical Dilemma, Blog, concierge clients, Concierge Senior, coronavirus, Elderly Disaster Plan, Emergency Plan, FREE MARKETING WEBINAR, FREE WEBINAR, geriatric care manager start up, marketing to concierge clients, marketing to the top 10$, marketing to upper 10%, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Nursing Home disaster plan, on-call staff, Paying for Long term care Tagged With: adding geriatric care management, aging life care manager, aging life geriatric care billing data base, aging life or geriatric care marketing plan, aging parent crisis, Care Management marketing plan, Coronavirus & Medicare For All, coronavirus and seniors, Coronavirus disaster plan, cost of long term care, free webinar, Free webinar marketing, geriatric care manager, geriatric care manager. webinar. free welinar, Medicare for All, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, pandemic, paying for geriatric care management, paying to long term care, seniors &Coronavirus

Virtual Quality Of Life Activities for Elders During the Coronavirus

March 21, 2020

Loneliness & Isolation a Plague Among Elders Especially When Isolated by Coronavirus

Geriatric care managers who work with isolated or depressed clients can use quality of life to bring back joy  especially during the coronavirus pandemic

Care Manager Nina Herndon, the national expert of elder quality of life, cites in her chapter on Quality of Life, in Handbook of Geriatric Care Management a quote from the aging visionary Bill Thomas MD  in his book,  “What Are Old People For”.

Thomas says this is the plague of so many elders, who suffer loneliness, isolation, helplessness, and boredom because their environment is empty of companionship, intimacy, self-direction, and meaningful activity. Care Managers can fill this void with quality of life now virtually during the coronavirus.

Virtual Humminbird Quality of Life Program

In response to the Coronavirus Nina’s Herndon’s GCM Sage Eldercare has developed a packaged Humminbird Program that already thrived into one that can be used virtually.

Hummingbird Virtual and Phone Programming

The Hummingbird Project is implementing virtual and remote activity sessions to mitigate the negative impact of social isolation on older adults, especially for those with a behavioral expression of unmet needs who are struggling.

They are eager to use our creativity to help support your client and/or loved ones and enhance the quality of life during this difficult time! As such, we are offering reduced rate options and easy to initiate services for remote activity sessions.

Sessions can be conducted in a number of unique and creative ways: 

  • Virtual Video Conferencing: Using Zoom, Facetime, etc. we can offer popular activities such as guided virtual museum tours, intellectual stimulation, live musical concerts, art lessons, and more. Let’s bring Hummingbird magic into the home of isolated seniors across the nation! 

  • Phone Programming: We are pleased to provide the same quality of life activities usually presented in person. This might include legacy projects, oral history projects, lifelong learning, gratitude, spiritual devotion, verbal brain games, storytelling, and much more. 

  • Mail Order Activity Kits: Kit activities come with detailed instructions and engaging materials, so your client or loved one can feel confident as they begin exploring new experiences at the time and pace that works for them. 

  • Social Isolation Activity Plans: We recommend the creation of a social isolation activity plan for each person, which will include a schedule of activities, ideas, and ways to stay connected based on the individual’s life story and interests. We can create and send you this, and you or a family member can then implement it as needed. 

  • Joyful Moments: Quality of life activities like those you’ll find in Joyful Moments therapeutic activity cards help reconnect older adults to what brings them purpose, joy, and meaning in life. You’ll find step-by-step instructions and suggested adaptations for activities that cover all seven domains of quality of life: Physical, Spiritual, Intellectual, Creative, Vocational, Emotional and Environmental. Available online for $24.95 + shipping. Includes a 30-minute complimentary consultation and free tips and tricks handout on how to get started! Click here to order today!

  • They look forward to being of service during this time of crisis when compassion, therapeutic support, engagement, and joy are needed more than ever! To initiate services, please contact Tiffany Paige Ramirez at tpaigeramirez@sageeldercare.com or 916-990-7944.
  1.                    
Get More information about how to set up a Quality of Life Program check out My Geriatric Care Management Operations Manual that includes step by step  procedures on how to set up a Quality of Life Program 

   

Sign Up For My Newest Free Webinar 

 

Filed Under: aging life business, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, Blog, Coronavirus emergency plan, coronavirus quality of life virtual program, Dr. Bill Thomas, elder care manager, Emotional Quality of Life, geriatric social worker, Intellectual Quality of Life, Long Term Care Coverage, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Quality of Life, Quality of Life for elders, Quality of Life Virtual Program, Quality of Life Virtually, Senior Loneliness Tagged With: aging life care manager, aging parent crisis, care manager, case manager, coronavirus, coronavirus and seniors, Coronavirus virtual quality of Life, geraitric care manager, geriatric care manager, Handbook of Geriatric Care Management third edition, Humminbird Program, increasing quality of life, Intellectual quality of life, isolation and quality of life, Nina Herndon, nurse advocate, nurse care manager

Do You Have Emergency Procedures For Coronavirus For Your Agency?

March 20, 2020

 

 

Do you have procedures for an emergency at your agency?

 

The coronavirus has put home care and geriatric care management agencies in a terrible bind. Most GCM ‘s or home care agencies had no emergency procedure in place for any disaster but even if they did a pandemic was not anticipated by almost anyone in the catalog of emergencies.

AGING LIFE CARE ASSOCIATION HELP WITH CORONAVIRUS

Now that it is upon us geriatric care managers can benefit from the Aging Life Care Association’s webinars on Zoom to help their ALCA and geriatric Care Management agencies. The ability of any care management agency, serving frail elders, to function despite an emergency is critical. For example for members the have an upcoming Webinar through Zoom-TAKING ON NEW CLIENTS WHILE BEING “QUARANTINED”, which is incredibly valuable

They offer a daily blog for geriatric care managers with updates on an ALCA of GCM Practice under the coronavirus threat and are much-needed resources in these highly traumatic times. With agencies unable to directly see clients in states where like California have imposed at Stay at Home order where geriatric care manager cannot see their clients except virtually and on top of that both care staff and care management staff may have come down with the virus, information about how to keep your agency going is invaluable. Membership in ALCA could be very valuable to geriatric care managers. If you join tell them I sent you.

 

NEED FOR AN EMERGENCY PLAN FOR EVERY DISASTER

An emergency plan for all emergencies is necessary for all geriatric care management and ALCA agencies. With massive hurricane Dorian lasting 2 weeks last year and the west once again facing massive wildfires, tornados already wreaking devastation this season and the polar vortex perhaps coming again next year-do you have emergency procedures?

Informal agency emergency procedures work in a start-up care management business but what if the solo practitioner is ill and out?

 If illness, accident, some other unforeseen event overtakes an owner or man­ager, no emergency procedures can be suicide in an emergency, not to mention liabil­ity to your elderly clients.

You could be like these two GCM’s who lost their businesses in weather events that knocked them out.

PARADISE FIRE DEVASTATION OF A GERIATRIC CARE MANAGEMENT PRACTICE

GCM Jim Boyd of Paradise, California lost everything in the catastrophic fire in the town of Paradise, where he lived and practiced. He was trying to check on an aging client in Paradise, located in the midst of the Sierra forest when the huge forest fire immolated the entire town. Although a Go Fund Me started by the Aging Life raised almost $10,000 for Jim, he did not have enough to rebuild his home where he had his home-based GCM business. Then he and  90% of the residents of Paradise never returned.

 Every geriatric care professional needs a formal, written backup plan that dictates action, should a disaster or emergency arise.

It ‘s necessary to assess your company’s risk of temporary or permanent service disrup­tion if a disaster or emergency is experienced. This may seem an overwhelming task at first, but when you break it down into pieces, it becomes workable.

Learn about preparing for emergencies how you can prepare you, your clients and staff for disasters and absences of key personnel.

 

With pandemic’s, global warming’s effects causing floods, larger hurricanes, and the specter of more catastrophic weather events, you need to prepare now. Get the new Handbook of Geriatric Care Management 4th edition now– or out in Kindle or hardback with an excellent chapter on how to prepare your agency for disasters, plus forms to use, by GCM President Liz Barlow.           

 

 

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Filed Under: Aging, aging life business, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, ALCA Beneifits, ALCA Disaster Plan, CAREGIVER RESOUCES, Coronavirus emergency plan, Elderly Disaster Plan, Emergency Plan, GCM Disaster Plan, Geriatric Care Management Business, geriatric care management emergency proceduress, geriatric care manager, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric social worker, Home care disaster plan, Home Care Emergency Coronavirus Plan, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Private Duty Home Care Tagged With: aging life care manager, care manager, case manager, coronavirus, coronavirus and seniors, Coronavirus disaster plan, disaster plan, elder emergency preparedness, GCM disaster plan, geriatric care management, global warming, hurricane, Hurricane Katrina, Medicare & coronavirus, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, pandemic disaster plan, Paradise, preparing for a disaster, wildfires in west

What are 8 Steps to a Successful VIP Client Inquiry Call with CoronaVirus ?

March 4, 2020

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How Not to Lose a New Client at an Inquiry

An inquiry is the most critical point in opening or losing 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

You will get many desperate long -distance calls from adult children calling about care management to visit their family members with the coronavirus pandemics’main target being seniors with compromised health They may have just have learned about Mom or Dad’s illness or high risk which they may have understood faster if they did not live long-distance or saw Mom frequently. Now that the coronavirus is especially hitting older people with health issues here are steps to successful  inquiry for 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 health care, risk and situation at the intake, determine the level of care, services they need to arrange community care for any problem including coronavirus and level of GCM monitoring to sell your services.

2. You assure inquiries that Medicare now covers the coronavirus and you know how to access and work with all entitlements
3. You sell these services by convincing the caller that you offer a highly personalized and compassionate approach to the family and older clients. besides high clinical skills. 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.


4. 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.
5. 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.
6. You show them you can access all community services and resource options for senior health especially health care services for flu, and epidemics, like coronavirus they could not find alone at a distance but are now available to them rapidly through your services.


7. 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.
8. You persuade them that by scheduling the next step, a free complimentary consultation call, you will help them make sound decisions based on reality and assessment. 

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

Since geriatric care management and home care are expensive these callers are probably in the top 10% so learn to work with them from intake to the delivery of care

New free Webinar-Sales and Marketing to Find the VIP Concierge Client

March 31, 2020 -2PM -3:30 PM PST

Concierge Clients are the only way a GCM or ALCA care manager can make a profit and have their business thrive. Find out who are they, how you find them, design GCM Products they will purchase, and create a marketing plan and gold standard services to have them sign your contract and use your services long term

Learn                                                                   

Who They Are- 4 Types

How to Locate them in your service area                                 

How to create a strategic marketing plan to sell to them

How to Develop Gold Standard GCM Products and Services

Find Out More 

March 31, 2020 -2PM -3:30 PM PST

Concierge Clients are the only way a GCM or ALCA care manager can make a profit and have their business thrive. Find out who are they, how you find them, design GCM Products they will purchase, and create a marketing plan and gold standard services to have them sign your contract and use your services long term

Learn

Who They Are- 4 Types

How to Locate them in your service area

How to create a strategic marketing plan to sell to them

How to Develop Gold Standard GCM Products and 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, Blog, care manager, case manager, Concierge aging clients, Concierge Senior, Dysfunctional aging family, elder care manager, Families, FREE MARKETING WEBINAR, FREE WEBINAR, Geriatric Care Management Business, geriatric care manager, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric social worker, inquiry call, Long Distance Care, marketing to long distance adult children, new customers, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Webinar Tagged With: aging family crisis, aging life or GCM inquiry, aging life or geriatric care manager, care manager, care manager eldercare manager, case manager, Certified Senior Advisors, Changes in Medicare, client inquiry, coronavirus, coronavirus and seniors, drunken holiday, dysfunctional family on the holiday, GCM inquiry, GCM intake, geriatric care manager, intake, intake Aging Life, long distance care provider, Medicare & coronavirus, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, pandemic

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