End of Life-When Do You Need Mediation?

February 23, 2021

Why do some families need mediation at the end of life? Mediation is a voluntary process in which the parties, with the help of an impartial third party mediator, work together to resolve their differences or solve a problem they were unable to address satisfactorily without help. These family differences especially happen to dysfunctional families but can beset any family at the end of life. They are faced with overwhelming emotions and decisions that demand that the family work together as a team. What happens to dysfunctional and even nearly normal families during this trying time? They don’t gather as a team. They fight. They fret and they feud. What are the results of this fighting, fretting, and feuding in families at the end of life?

Unresolved family conflicts emerge

Dysfunctional families become more dysfunctional

Family members’ grief, pain, and anxiety are often masked as anger and presents as conflict (past and present)

Older person dies without resolving important family issues

Older person dies in conflict, not in peace

Deliver a Good End of Life- Add Death and Dying to Your Care Management Agency

Serve Your Client Until Death Do You Part

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

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

Transition the patient/family through the five stages of death
Help clients be active participants in their care
Give the family/caregiver tools to manage care
Provide family center care to caregiver and family
Choose the right support services through all stages of death
Introduce Hospice and Palliative care and work with their team
Use ALCA End of Life Benefits During COVID
Use COVID -19 Family Coaching for GCM
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If you really want to add End of Life to your care management business sign up for this webinar now

Celebrating the Resurrection in the season of COVID-19 deaths in Nursing Home

April 12, 2020

Nearly 2000 residents of nursing homes or skilled nursing facilities are dead

from the coronavirus epidemic epidemic. According to The New York Times yesterday “The virus has perhaps been cruelest at nursing homes and other facilities for older people, where a combination of factors — an aging or frail population, chronic understaffing, shortages of protective gear and constant physical contact between workers and residents — has hastened its spread.”

Advocates blame the nursing homeowners who cut staff. “The residents are sitting ducks,” said Richard Mollot, the executive director of the Long Term Care Community Coalition.

World Wide Deaths

This is not just New York but it estimated that over 2100 nursing homes across the country This holocaust of elders is not limited to the US. In France 3237 have died Madrid alone 4260 and Italy 8859 deaths prompting a parliamentary inquiry

We need an inquiry but more than that we need a federal response, which there is none and national coverage which is just starting to occur after the most vulnerable on the planet were locked up in buildings where no one could visit, filled with the people with the highest risk, and staff going from facility to facility as they need three jobs to keep them afloat and spreading the virus then becoming ill themselves

TRUMP CUT BACKS IN NURSING HOME STAFFING INFECTION CONTROL

This lack of staffing and cut back in infection control federally mandated by the Trump government. Trump cut back regulation upgrades mandated by the Obama administration

The Obama administration effort, finalized in 2016, requiring all long-term care facilities to develop infection control and prevention plans to detect, report and contain communicable diseases. It also covered telemedicine, so needed now publishing infection control rates weekly in Nursing homes that manage from 1.6 million to 3.8 million infections each year, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. A 2017 analysis by Kaiser Health News found that 74 percent of nursing homes have been cited for lapses in infection control — the most frequent type of health violation.

ALCA GCM’S AND ALL AGING PROFESSIONALS PAY ATTENTION TO CARNAGE

Geriatric care managers who very often see patient in a nursing home have to sit up and pay stark attention to this, as do, adult children across the country who have placed their aging parents in what now is a cauldron of coronavirus with no one to track what is going on inside their parent’s last

IN LA SUGGESTIONS TO TAKE RESIDENTS HOME

In LA where — death 8500 deaths have been reported in a nursing home an LA County authority suggested family pull older residents out of the nursing homes past haste

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.

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

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Should You Use Benefits vs Features to Market Geriatric Care Management

January 22, 2020

HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN HOW GERIATRIC CARE MANAGEMENT DOES?

Think about your last few marketing campaigns. Look over some of the emails you sent to prospective customers or the social media updates you made promoting your brand-new product or service. Read over some of the blog posts you published.

How much of this promotional content focused on what your product does?

TWO MARKETING APPROACHES

FEATURES

When it comes to marketing, there are two primary approaches you can take. The first focuses on what your product or service is or does – including all the shiny bells and whistles you’ve worked so hard to develop. The other focuses on how your product or service will improve users’ lives.

Which of these approaches do you think is more effective for the seniors you serve when you find they need them?

Take a look at the list of features below, taken directly from current advertising and marketing materials.

American Lifetime Self-setting clock for seniors with dementia that is the only one of its kind to include 5 multi-function alarms, with the option to set reminders to take medications throughout the day.

Jitterbug Senior Smart Phone 2 with Large 5.5″ screen,easy to see and 5 Urgent Response button

umbrella that opens and closes with a button

Each is a feature-a factual statement about the product or service being promoted. But features aren’t what entice customers, ( adult children you market to), buy your product. That’s where benefits come in. A benefit answers the question “What’s in it for me? or what will help my parent or me the caregiver”. This means the feature provides the customer/client with something of value to them. This is where most businesses go wrong.

Benefits

The benefit of a self-setting clock is the person with dementia cannot reset it so the clock does this automatically and as they forget medications & times, the self setting clock will remind them

The benefit of the Jitterbug phone is seniors lose eyesight and have a hard time reading text on phones. They can have medical emergencies and forget telephone numbers or get lost. The benefit of jitterbug’s large easy to see response button is it gets them one person who will help the senior even if they forgot the number. This is just like operator they used to get on the phone.It makes the older person much safer and the family members confident they can reach help if they need it

The benefit of an umbrella that opens with one button is you stay dryer in the rain as seniors often have arthritis that can make it difficult to push open an umbrella quickly, so make you keep dry in the rain.

The best way to understand the true benefit of your product or service or to answer the “What’s in it for me?” question-is to focus instead on results. A customer’s perception of each feature’s results is what attracts him or her to a particular product or service.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF GERIATRIC CARE MANAGEMENT?

You are selling geriatric care management to a long-distance son and explain the feature of care management is an assessment. He has no idea what that is. Not being a social worker or an RN, he is – just a desperate long-distance son. He wants to know, what’s in it for him

You could say ( product) called “Safe at Home” that will make sure his Mom is getting all the support and care she needs and he will not get midnight panic calls or have to scramble to make emergency flights to solve a crisis, like a hospitalization. Plus you will make sure any problems are solved before they turn into a crisis, as he lives far away, always keeping him informed so he can go back to just being a son.This take a huge weight off his shoulder- anwering his ” what’s in it for me”

LEARN MORE ABOUT MARKETING GCM FEATURES AND BENEFITS

FREE Webinar

LEARN HOW TO MARKET LIKE YOUR BUSINESS DEPENDED ON IT

January 23 @ 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm PST

The busiest season for care managers is January & February after as adult children have just visited for the holiday and seeing their elderly parents skating on very thin aging ice

Learn care management marketing so you can:

Capture those desperate clients in January after the festive fright-

Develop strategic marketing that brings more customers

Market care management benefits and make the sale

Understand branding

Develop a positioning strategy so the caller chooses you

Understand lead generation in care management

Get the best marketing software

Create a 5 Star Marketing Plan for the top 10% of seniors who can afford you.

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THIS FREE WEBINAR FROM 2 PM – 3 PM PST Thursday, January 23, 2020

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10 marketing messages for Adult Kids Who Call 911 GCM After Holidays

December 29, 2019

“Geriatric care managers are wonder woman for long-distance care providers? “

This is an important marketing message for care managers to use for the call you will get from long-distance family members who just spent the holidays with aging parents and freaked out at the decline.

So be prepared with terrific marketing copy and messaging when they call you.

Your copy in an ad or website should include-

“It’s a preventative and prudent idea to have a geriatric care manager in the town where your older relative resides. If there is a crisis, it is cheaper to have a GCM solve it. In an urgent situation, a care manager can go to the hospital or emergency room. This is saner and more cost-effective than you getting on last-minute, expensive flights. You can still go but they can immediately be there to deal with the crisis. They are good insurance.

Even when making marketing visits to 3rd parties like elder law attornies or wealth managers, you can pitch “Before any crisis, the GCM do an initial assessment and visit your long-distance older relative periodically (once a month, once every two months).This is preventative. That way they are there for you when you need them and have all the information to solve the problem.”

Here is a better marketing message for long-distance adult children:

“Think of care managers the way you do one of those “blow-up beds.” You can pump them up when you need them in a crisis—actually avoid that crisis, and you yourself can sleep more soundly and with more peace of mind in your own bed.

Some of the things a geriatric care manager can do for long-distance care providers are:

1. Save you money by helping keep your parent out of the hospital and you off emergency long-distance flights.

2.Facilitate a family discussion of needs, resources, and division of labor among friends family

3. Recommend ways to proactively prepare and plan for a parent’s possible health care crisis.

4. Work on family cooperation to formulate a realistic parent-care plan.

5.Assess the strengths and weaknesses of all of the potential caregivers

6. Help adult siblings resolve conflicts about care decisions.

7. Help siblings act together in the best interest of the parent

8.Decrease the tension between hometown and long distance siblings

9. Help the long-distance care provider deal with guilt and frustration that may result from their inability to provide more of the day-to-day care.

10. Locate aging resources in your elder parents’ area quickly and without you having to do it.

Learn more about gaining new long-distance care provider clients -this coming holiday season.