Best Tool to Give the Family Holiday Hope

November 14, 2022

Hope is the Best Tool on the Holidays !

How do you give the family Holiday Hope? During Christmas and Hannaka family caregivers, especially in the dysfunctional family can be drinking or numbing themselves from the pain of caregiving. They will ruin the holiday celebration in one way or

another. Maybe they are drugging themselves with the telly or abusing prescription drugs. Depression and anxiety ( rife among caregivers) are predictors of increased alcohol use.

Social isolation, which is experienced by some caregivers, is also predictive of increased alcohol use.

How do you Give the Family Holiday Hope? How do you as a geriatric care manager change the script for these aging dysfunctional families – family caregivers and older members who are supposed to care for but can’t? How does a professional GCM make the characters transform?

It’s actually simple –but loaded with skill- give them hope. You need to use yourself to give them hope that things will change. It’s the best tool in a geriatric care manager toolbox- especially on and after the dreaded holidays.

Use of Self

To give the family holiday hope the use of Self is perhaps the most powerful tool for geriatric care managers. The use of Self provides families with guarded optimism. GCMs have to offer a vision of the future that is based not only on a desire for hopeful outcomes. This has come from our own clinical knowledge and belief that change to their nasty crippled, family

system is indeed possible.

By being direct, empathetic, and

nonjudgmental, we become a holding bay for

stressed caregivers, creating a place of safety,

confidentiality, consistency, and support.

Finally, give the family holiday hope by GCM’s offer our clients a model of

perseverance. By giving up on the possibility of

positive change and by exploring all options,

the GCM enables families to feel that, regardless of the outcome, they have done all that they can to support the older adult.

Be like Judy Garland on the holiday offering hope

Have yourself a merry little Christmas.
Let your heart be light

From now on
our troubles will be out of sight

Give the” Merry Christmas – next year

SIGN UP FOR MY HOLIDAY WEBINAR –

Get Ready for the Holiday Rush

WEDNESDAY, November 16th, 2022, FROM 2 PM – 3:30 PM PST

Learn how to create!

Pre-Holiday Social media campaigns to reach worried caregivers
Pre- Holiday-Materials about the warning signs that a parent needs help
Pre-Holiday Marketing to help you sign up families who might face a serious decline in aging parents

How to sell services to desperate post-holiday callers from Normal dysfunctional & long-distance family
How to use tools to contain holiday chaos & arrange care in festive family fright
How to move the family to New Year’s stability
Give the Family Holiday Hope

Position Your Agency ahead of Care Managers who do not have great pre-holiday marketing campaigns and lack the clinical skills how to work with Adult Children and families during the chaotic aging family holiday visit when adult kids find their aging parents need care
Featuring

Cathy Cress MSW author of the Handbook of Geriatric Care

Management

SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL GERIATRIC CARE 1

Do I Need Social Media for Holidays?

November 8, 2022

Do I Need Social Media?

Do I need Social Media to attract new clients during the coming holidays? Many have a solo practice and it is one more thing to do on top of marketing your business, managing clients paying bills – all overwhelming jobs?? Some geriatric care managers own flip phones and dig in their heels and say what is social media marketing going to do for my kind of business and do I really need it?

Social Media Main Plank of Care Manager Marketing Strategy

Social Media is so important, especially in the coming holidays -critically to reach long-distance care provider who visits aging family members to celebrate the holiday, where they find frightening signs of parents needing care. and then know to call you. It doesn’t matter if you run a solo practice or a big national company. Social media is an essential piece of your business marketing strategy. Now in this busiest season for care managers, you cannot consider skipping social media, especially in a small business like care management

Social platforms help you connect with your customers, increase awareness about your brand, and boost your leads and sales. With more than 4.1 billion people around the world using social media, it’s no passing trend.

4 Ways to Get More Clients With Social Media–

You need social media most importantly if you are just starting your aging life or geriatric care management business or want to grow the number of cases you have to grow and thrive, which you can over the holidays, the busiest season of the year for care managers. So, this is what you can do to get more customers to use your services. Write a blog

How

Choose Word Press or another blog software and set up an account to start positioning information to potential clients. The platform can add links to social media so you just post easily on your blog instead of going to each social media site to post. To get more help sign up for my holiday webinar on technology

How

Design the format (they have templates), write content, publish on a least a monthly basis, and consider services like Constant Content

3. Open twitter Facebook, Linked in Pinterest Accounts

Sign up and learn how to use social media. Best if on your website and automatically posts

Services needed to complete

4. Join Linked in for professional referrals: Develop a Profile, get testimonials, and join Linked in groups like Aging Life Care Asso group

Create a Facebook fan page for your GCM business

Learn to use Pinterest for your business

Create a Twitter account for your business

Join Instagram for business

Sign -up for Google My Business

5. Lack of Social Media Skills No Time to do? Hire Expert

If you feel you do not have the time or the skills to do this- very likely for folks over a certain age- we did not grow up with this language- hire someone to do this or best bet a grandchild.

You can also have a professional create marketing content, newsletters, and blogs for you using businesses

To get more help sign up for my holiday webinar on technology

SIGN UP FOR MY HOLIDAY WEBINAR –

Get Ready for the Holiday Rush

WEDNESDAY November 16th, 2022, FROM 2 PM – 3:30 PM PST

Learn how to create!

Pre-Holiday Social media campaigns to reach worried caregivers
Pre- Holiday-Materials about the warning signs that a parent needs help
Pre-Holiday Marketing to help you sign up families who might face a serious decline in aging parents

How to sell services to desperate post-holiday callers from Normal dysfunctional & long-distance family
How to use tools to contain holiday chaos & arrange care in festive family fright
How to move the family to New Year’s stability

Position Your Agency ahead of Care Managers who do not have great pre-holiday marketing campaigns and lack the clinical skills how to work with Adult Children and families during the chaotic aging family holiday visit when adult kids find their aging parents need care
Featuring

Cathy Cress MSW author of the Handbook of Geriatric Care

Management

Sign-up for my Free White paper to learn to use the copy & keywords to sign-up for home care or care management Concierge-VIP Clients who can afford care management & home care as Medicare does not cover long-term care

What Are Your Choices in Aging Life or GCM Client Software?

June 4, 2022

What are the Four Geriatric Care Management Databases?

There are only four significant aging life or GCM Software Choices ? So the options for client software are slim. Jewel Code and My Junna are two choices. Care Tree I Health Home are two more options. Geriatric care managers and ALCA managers who

have home care staffing themselves are fans of Clear Care, which offers staffing if you also have private duty home care but is not really as user-friendly for care management needs with limited space to document & no care planning at all.

Which GCM Database Should you Choose – See my Newest Webinar?

If you are a geriatric or aging life care manager or a private duty home care agency doing geriatric care management start up or still on paper- which GCM software choice should you use and why. Find what you need in your client database and check out each product to see if it has what you want. Join me for my newest free webinar on August 25, when I will show zoom interview with all 4 four CEO’s asking them what are the features and benefits of their software and why their product stands out from their competition.

Here is a list of what a care management database should do for you- see what the CEO’s of the 4 GCM Software Products say they do

Track all client information
Create and update a care plan
Create a client activity log
Tracks billable hours
Document client activities
Interface with a calendar for client and care manager appointments
Track client referrals
Track guardianship information
Track medications
Reconcile medications
Create a client face sheet with all demographics.
Create a care community
Upload document and pictures
Do real-time updates
Be HIPPA compliant
Store historical client records
Create reports and export data
Create medication and text message reminders
Add custom patient field
digitalize patient paper records
go paperless
interface with care providers in the home via phone
Increase billing by making it easy to bill in the field
Patient portal
Have a calendar

Learn more about Aging Life and Care Management Software Choices

Join me in my newest FREE Webinar

Smart TECH Solutions to Wire Your Care Management Business for Profit

WHEN Wednesday, August 25^th, 2021

WHAT TIME_2 PM-3:30 PM Pacific Standard Time

SIGN UP

Presented by Cathy Cress MSW – Handbook of Geriatric Care Management

We will Cover

Critical software programs that make care management information flow

with 1-1 interviews with CEO’s of 4 major care management software platforms
Caretree
IHealth Home
My Junna
Jewel Code

What you need in a website

Why you need content marketing

With interview with Natasha Beauchamp owner of Elder Pages on-Line where she develops both websites and content marketing for ALCA members and geriatric care managers

What are easy-to-use social media sites

Sign -up

Video -Learn Business Skills to Start a Geriatric Care Management Business!

May 6, 2022

What Business Skills Do You Have in Starting A Geriatric Care Management Agency?

Starting a Geriatric Care Management Agency does not take simply clinical skills but also business skills. Only 3% of geriatric care managers now have business skills because most are in the health field, nurses, and social workers. So it takes business skills you would get in an MBA to start of GCM business. What are those skills and how do you get them without an MBA?

GCM ALCA billing skills to develop a billing system that allows you to bill 85% of your time, control your cash flow, and invoice promptly to make a profit
GCM financial forecasting skills to develop a 3-year financial forecast using an 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), majortasks 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 lead generation, launch social media, and conduct content marketing to gain new customers
GCM sales skills
position your agency to sell your menu of services 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

If you do not have all or some of these skills, check out my Online GCM Business Class which includes 10 modules teaching you all these business skills to start your GCM Business including two modules on critical financial management so you do not go under and lose your dream start-up

Includes MY Geriatric Care Management Operations Manual and Forms Manual at no cost

Find Out More

CHECK OUT OUR GCM BUSINESS CLASS

What Type of Conceirge Care Providers Do You Recruit for Concierge Clients?

May 2, 2022

Medicare Does Not Fund Long Term Care

Concierge Clients, wanting concierge care providers, are sadly the only clients of GCM or ALCA experts because of income inequity in the US and the fact that Medicare does not cover long-term care, like home care and geriatric care management.

You Are Only As Strong As Your Weakest Link Especially With Concierge Clients!

You must serve the top 10% of aging Americans because those clients make your ALCA business or GCM business make money and thrive. But to deliver the gold standard services that concierge care demands, let’s take the weakest link in your business- your care staff. You are only as strong as your weakest link these concierge care providers. These incredibly important employees’ skills will measure how concierge clients really rate you.

First and foremost to serve Concierge clients you need highly skilled concierge care providers with a CNA background or years of experience. Older generations, especially entitled clients, are likely to be

less trustful of an individual with numerous visible tattoos and a Mohawk. They would rather have their concierge care providers be a clean-cut employee wearing a uniform. You want background-checked employees with tolerant of demanding clients and willing to be servile and assertive and know when to use either.

Concierge Care Providers for Concierge Clients Should Be:

WELL-GROOMED
WELL DRESSED
SERVILE
GOOD COOK
GOOD TABLE SETTERS
WILLING TO BE CONFIDANTE but under GCM supervision

For COMPANION CARE hire

Sophisticated employee
Can Order Opera theater tickets
Accompany to events
Drivers Licence

GCM has to Set Boundaries with concierge clients:

Concierge care providers can cook French Cuisine but if the client“Heavy Care-priority -must have transfer skills and CNA or HHA skills not cooking skills
Cannot often get a gourmet cook who changes diapers
Cannot have careprovider looks like a model who uses Hoyer lift

CONCIERGE Clients-NON-medical

CAREGIVER’S SAMPLE to-do list

Doing grocery shopping or grocery home delivery
Post office run
Pet-care
Waiting in line at the DMV
Taking the car for Car repairs, oil change, car wash
Event planning- GCM
Gift-buying
Plant care
Picking up dry cleaning
Running miscellaneous errands
Making travel arrangements
Mail pickup
chef services
Dinner reservations
What Cannot do
Performing bank transactions, such as depositing or withdrawing money, or shopping for the client without pre-arranged payment through the store could pose a liability
Assist with finances, online banking, bill paying/tracking
pickup of prescription medications -Only GCM to do because of medication abuse and liability
Join me in my newest FREE Webinar

Free Webinar To Find Concierge Clients
How to Find Concierge Clients Who Can Afford You
WHEN Tuesday, May 17^th, 2022

WHAT TIME_2 PM-3:30 PM Pacific Standard Time

What we will cover
- Why only the top 10% can afford private pay care management.
- Who are the surprising Retired VIP Clients?
- Who Are the 5 types of VIP/Concierge Clients?
- Sales Using Benefits Not Features to ALCA -GCM 3^rd PARTIES
- Understand how to find VIP Concierge Clients Do hot mapping & Market Studies
- How to Use Free Public Relations ( PR) to Find Adult Children of VIP Clients
- How to create or revise a Concierge Geriatric Care Management Strategic Marketing Plan
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Learn how to keep Concierge Clients
Young woman hugging her mother or grandmother and looking at camera.

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