Home Care Marketing: Building Partnerships with Geriatric Care Managers to Elevate Home Care Services

Discover how to forge meaningful relationships with geriatric care managers and elevate your home care business in our latest episode. Featuring insights from seasoned professionals Lisa Marsolais, Annette Ziegler, and Valerie Van Booven, we unpack the critical roles these experts play in ensuring the well-being of elderly clients. Learn from Annette's firsthand experiences about the invaluable support geriatric care managers provide, especially during complex medical and psychological situations.

This episode shines a light on the exceptional services offered by geriatric care managers, from crisis intervention to navigating transitions from hospitals to home care. With costs ranging from $150 to $300 per hour, these professionals are indispensable for families facing challenging care decisions. Understand the pivotal connections they have with elder law attorneys, social workers, and hospitals, and how these referrals can enhance the quality of care for your clients.

Connect with us as we highlight Kathy, an accomplished geriatric care manager whose dedication goes above and beyond, sometimes offering free services to her clients. We also provide creative networking tips, including themed giveaways for events like National Hydration Day and Father's Day, designed to build lasting relationships with potential referral sources. Tune in for a blend of practical advice, inspiring stories, and unique strategies to leverage partnerships in home care and geriatric care management.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:11

okay, I think it's the top of the hour. People here, oh wow, hi. Everybody. Usually lisa says happy friday, usually.

Speaker 2: 0:24

Lisa says happy Friday T-J-I-F. Happy Friday. I didn't forget, I was just letting people in. Happy Friday everybody. Thanks for joining us.

Speaker 1: 0:36

Good morning, happy Friday, good afternoon wherever you are, depending on where you are.

Speaker 1: 0:40

Okay, I'm going to start with housekeeping, because that will give everybody a minute to continue to come on in. And so housekeeping is. We usually keep our lines muted unless we're talking, but certainly we want you to engage and talk to us, and we don't want to talk at you. We want you to help talk to us and share stories, experiences, tips, ask questions, make recommendations. So the object of the game is for everybody to share if they have the ability to share. I know some of you might be in your cars or you might be out somewhere, but if you share your experience or ask a question, there's also the chat. I think some of you are already in the chat, so if you want to just ask a question there, you can. You don't have to unmute your line, but you're welcome to unmute and talk and tell us what you want to know. So if there are other things that you want us to talk about, let us know. Introductions Dawn is off today. She's having a nice little family vacation. That is well deserved.

Speaker 2: 1:48

And then there's lisa hey everybody, sorry I was letting people in still. Um, I'm lisa marcelet. I was in home care for like uh, many, many, many years wearing all types of hats, and I am just happy to be here with you still touching the home care space and glad, glad you guys are doing what you're doing. Happy to be here. Thanks for being here with us.

Speaker 3: 2:16

Hi everyone. I'm Annette Ziegler. I have been in home care over 20 years, so I am dating myself, but I have a lot of experience in working in a CCRC and seven years in a non-medical home care agency. So happy to be here and share our topic today with you.

Speaker 1: 2:35

And that's going to be the presenter superstar today. She's an awesome, awesome, awesome educator, along with Lisa. And then Lisa is going to do some of the you know leave behinds that we always do. And I'm Valerie Van Boeven. I'm a registered nurse. I'm the co-owner of Approved Senior Network and I am more about the digital space, but as a registered nurse, I've worn every hat you can imagine in your life, including discharge planning, insurance and ICU and all the things. So we all understand your challenges and your wins and the things that make you happy and the things that don't make you happy. So let's talk about how to watch the meetings that you've missed. So we do this every other week live, and I know you can't always join us, but we want you to join us live anytime you can. The recordings are all posted and we also have a live sales, home care, sales and marketing support forum and we want you to go there and get support. We want you to read the messages and see the ideas that are flying around in there. So go to homecaresalesforumcom. Your username is the email address that we've been sending your notification emails to. By the way, always, always, check spam, spam, spam, spam, spam. Spam. Password is emailed to you or if you don't know what your password is, just use the forgot your password feature and the system will send you a reset link or a new password or something.

Speaker 1: 4:11

Okay, next slide, once you get into the forum. Now I'm doing this from a desktop, so it's really important that you understand you're looking at this from a desktop view, not from an app view on your phone, so from the desktop view. Where my big arrow is, it says learning, and learning is where you go to see all the video replays. So the forum. You can see there. That's kind of an old screenshot, but you can see we have 428 members and at that time there were only 22 posts. There's a lot more now. You can see our support desk is linked there and our website and you can see all the conversations going back and forth.

Speaker 1: 4:49

But if you click on learning, you'll be able to see all the past live continuum meetings that we have every other week and you can go back to January and we try to title them with names so that you understand what we were talking about that day. You can breeze through the videos if you want to. You can fast forward through them and all the handouts. The PowerPoint slides are all there with all the links that we talked about in those meetings. So there's that. Once you hit, once you hit learning, and then you go to the 2024 Continuum Sales MAST, which is Continuum Sales Mastery Program. So once you go, you click on that, then go ahead and go to the next slide. You'll see that it goes back to January, february, march, april will be all the way After today. We'll be through the end of May. So there's plenty of things that you can go back and watch if you haven't been with us before. It's a lot of good stuff.

Speaker 3: 5:55

Okay.

Speaker 3: 5:56

Okay, I guess I'll take over. Thanks, valerie. Okay, our agenda today is we are going to learn what a geriatric care manager does, how to find them and collaborate with them, get private pay clients from a geriatric care manager and I've always said they're the hidden gem of referral sources. I worked with many geriatric care managers in home care in my last home care job and at any given time I would have 10 to 15 clients ongoing with them. They were my. I always said they were my good base because I got a lot of big hours 24, seven hours. So I just thought I wanted to kind of share about how I started working with geriatric care managers, what they do, how they help us. So hopefully you'll get some you know some good tips from this and maybe you can share some information if you've ever worked with geriatric care managers. And then Lisa put together some great June, july and August summer leave-behinds Wait till you see them. She's so good at this.

Speaker 3: 7:04

Okay, so what is a geriatric care manager? A geriatric care manager is also called a aging life care expert. They're usually a licensed nurse, a social worker, gerontologist, counselor or other professional. They provide assistance for you and your loved one in finding resources, making decisions, managing stress, and they provide a one-stop shopping. They care for you and your loved one, and they may also be members of the Aging Life Care Association, elca, which I will refer to later. Who do they serve? Older adults, individuals living with Alzheimer's, dementia, chronically ill, individuals with development disabilities and their caregivers. Many caregivers are just burnt out. They need support. They don't know where to go. Then they call this a geriatric care manager to kind of be the leader and help them, guide them on what to do. So what do they? What services do they offer In-person assessments. So this is probably the biggest thing in how I started connecting with geriatric care managers. They provide a thorough they can provide a thorough assessment and they can allow, understand the needs and customize the plans and perform services specifically met to meet each client's needs. They do interview questions. They cover a range of services relative to their health, which include everyday activities, nutritional status, memory, depression, finances, insurance, health history and more.

Speaker 3: 8:45

Here in New York State they perform PRIs, which is a patient review instrument, and the only way you can get into a nursing home is with a PRI. So for assessments, many times we would have clients that were really complex and we had a client care manager that would review all our clients and check in on them. But when we had a client care manager that would review all our clients and check in on them, but when we had complex clients that were not, you know, refusing care, they weren't taking their medications. They may have no family, they're not getting to their doctor's appointments, they may, you know, be taking money out of the bank and, you know, had all this cash in their house. We just saw these signs where they need a professional. So I would call.

Speaker 3: 9:33

I had a few geriatric care managers that I worked with and I would call them and say I think this person needs your service. I would talk to the family and you know they would agree that your mom or dad, they need somebody. You know you need a little more guidance than we can give you. And also, when I would have prospects, call me or just inquire. I used to get a lot that they were out of our scope. But you know, being in the home care business, we always want to help. So I was. You know I always tried to guide people. You know maybe I couldn't help them, but I would say, you know, I think it would be a family member saying I don't know if my mom needs memory care. My mother, my parents, are refusing help. I don't know what to do. They're in and out of the hospital. Why don't you call a geriatric care manager and they could do an assessment for you and then they will make a care plan and the care plan includes all the results. The assessment is usually done by a social worker or a nurse. It just depends on you know what the person needs. They'll make recommendations. They'll make referrals to communities. They will tell you. You know, a lot of families don't know what level of care that their loved one is at. They may think they need assisted living and they're skilled nursing. So they can, you know, tailor their needs to each individual. Oftentimes the care manager will discuss decisions about appropriate home care, support, money management, housing, power of attorney.

Speaker 3: 11:08

There were several times that we had clients that had absolutely no one. No one. They didn't have a power of attorney. They would need a guardianship and some of these Jared to care managers that I worked with were able to get guardianship for this client and help them. Also, we had several clients that would use them as an emergency contact. You know they thought, oh, I can just call you, I'm in the hospital on Saturday. Well, we, you know we can't, we're doing the home care services, we can't manage you, we can't case manage this. But this, they would be the emergency contact for this person that had nobody. So they're available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So they can call this person, this geriatric care manager, for an emergency contact and they could just hire them just as an emergency contact. That's all they, you know, they could just sign them up and only call them when they need them. There's all different ways you can use them. Once they start the services and you know they start using this geriatric care manager, they monitor their needs, they make the arrangements for them. The regular monitoring is important.

Speaker 3: 12:20

I had several clients that the care manager would come in and they would do their MediSets for them. They would set up, you know, their medications. They would notice if medications weren't being taken, check their health issues, if they need to go to the doctor. We were the eyes and ears too. So they communicated with our caregivers often and they would call our office or we would connect them, you know, with our care manager or caregivers to find out what was going on. So you know it was really great to have them involved. You know, like I said, especially in the clients that need that extra support, of course we have a lot of clients that the families are very involved and they have a lot of support, but then there's the clients that really don't have the support and I really think you're able to keep them at home longer when you have a care manager following them and overseeing things. Lisa, you're shaking your head.

Speaker 2: 13:18

Yeah, oh no, I'm just agreeing, definitely agreeing with you. I have had several situations where we had a geriatric care manager on deck, so to speak, had her cell phone number. She owned her own business in San Diego. She was like a boutique style and I would always call them when there was conflicts with the family, wanted one thing or another thing, and then you know silly medications, like there's like a ton of medications and they're just everywhere, and this person needs, needs some guidance, direction and needs someone to manage that for them, and so that was one area that we use and they would actually refer back to us too or keep that person, you know, under our care too, unless there was somewhere else they needed to go for us and we would talk about that. But they were really great resource for us because, while we're doing all the custodial side of things, they would help with the medical and financial, all of all those different things they could help with. So, yeah, definitely agree with you.

Speaker 3: 14:19

Great.

Speaker 3: 14:21

How are they paid? Okay, so they are private pay. Medicaid, medicare and health insurance does not cover their services, so they're billed privately. It's like a lawyer in a way. Average hourly rate here in New York is $150 to $200 per hour. That's like the range. It's expensive. One-time assessment is usually $200 to $300. So, right there, if somebody has a geriatric care manager, they have private pay and they can afford it. Now they do help people in crises that don't have the money. They help people set up to get Medicaid set up. But generally if they're using a geriatric care manager, they can afford private pay services. So that's why I always say they are the hidden gem, because I would always have a client thrown to me here and there that are given to me that a lot of hours, and it was 24 seven. So there's somebody that you really need to connect with.

Speaker 3: 15:19

The typical client of a geriatric care manager and when to refer your client. They have multiple medical issues, psychological issues. You're noticing things are going on. The caregivers are calling the office. They're not complying. You've tried several things and it's just not working and it's out of your control. You need somebody else to step in. They're unable to live safely in their own home. They're not making the right decisions, they're wandering. They may not be pleased with their current care providers and they need somebody to advocate for them. They may have home care. I've had situations where I've come in and they've had some private caregivers that were maybe stealing or taking advantage of them and the geriatric care manager would call me in and say, look, we're going to push, we're getting the staff out of this client's house and we'd like you to come in that happens often somebody to advocate for them, because you know these private aides were taking advantage of this client and she didn't know it and she didn't know how to you know how to get herself out of this. They're confused or overwhelmed about their situation, what the next steps are. It could be you know a couple, a husband or a wife and they're just not sure what to do for the next steps and they need guidance.

Speaker 3: 16:45

These geriatric care managers know all the resources in the area. They can give you recommendations. So it's just. It's just. They're just a wealth of knowledge. They have very limited family, very limited local support. They may have absolutely no support or I had a lot of clients where the families all live out of town and they needed somebody in town to oversee their parent. And it's worth it.

Speaker 3: 17:13

I mean, I used to say back when my dad he passed away years ago, but I didn't know that your care managers existed and I wish we had one because he really needed one. Their caregivers burn out inexperienced. I would get calls from either the husband or the wife or the children. They're tired. I don't know what to do. My mother's not listening to me. Help me, what do we do? When they called us, it was out of our control. So we would say why don't you have an assessment with a geriatric care manager? They might be able to help you and guide you, and they're just at odds regarding what the care decisions are. Okay. So the geriatric care managers are looking for home care referrals for many reasons. They're looking for life enrichment, companionship for their client to make sure they can't be there every day, so they will make a care plan. They want to make sure they're taking their medications. Eating Eating, we say, is huge because some, especially somebody with dementia, they're not eating their meals. So they want to make sure that a caregiver is there to make sure they're eating.

Speaker 3: 18:22

Many times, a lot of the cases that I would get from care managers. They would have dementia and they would need one-on-one. A lot of 24-7s I would get because they'd be coming out of a hospital or a rehab. They would not be able to be released because they didn't have anyone. So they would call me and say, hey, and it was always a crisis Friday, saturday, sunday. We'd answer the phone. Can you help me? Can you cover this case? Of course we can. They don't have family supports. They also can make or break a placement in assisted living and a memory care.

Speaker 3: 18:55

So there are some times when you know somebody might be getting placed in assisted living or memory care but they really want to go home. They're in a rehab, they're in a hospital, they're in a SNF. I don't want to go to assisted living, I don't want to go to a memory care and they might not really need it and they have the resources to stay home. So then that's when they get a geriatric care manager involved to help set them up so they can go home not go to the assisted living or the memory care, and stay home with home care. Sometimes it's you know they have to go to an assisted living or a memory care and there's a waiting list and there may not be you know room. So they'll call and say you know I need you to help this client out for 24, seven, for three weeks until their room opens up in the memory care. Once in a while we would do that and then the client was doing so well and they loved doing home. They would keep us those were gifts when we had those. You know they would stay 24-7. But they were able to afford it and they stayed home and they were doing great with our care.

Speaker 3: 20:05

No-transcript when do they get the referrals from? So they get the referrals from everywhere that home care agencies get the referrals from the top, I would say the elder law attorneys are the number one. A lot of times the care managers would tell me that their attorneys gave them this person's name because they realized they were in trouble. You know they were in trouble. Social workers at hospitals, snfs, call them when there is an emergency situation. They just can't place somebody. They just don't know. They have no home care, their living situation is not good, their house might be hoarded. So social workers call them often. Physicians, senior communities, marketing directors, executive directors, directors of nursings they all refer geriatric care managers, assisted living, memory care, the directors, when it gets to be out of their control and they just can't handle them. It's pretty much, you know, when it gets complex and they need somebody a professional to step in. Much you know when, when it gets complex and they need somebody a professional to step in.

Speaker 3: 21:17

Um, home care agencies, uh, mental health counselors and adult protective, you know we'd get, we would get some adult protective people that were, you know, taken from their home and they were living in an unsafe situation. Um, we had some great um. I could remember we had a lady and her husband that lived in this beautiful home on the lake here in upstate New York, a gorgeous home. They were both in rehab together and they wanted to go home and I wanted to go see their home. So I went to go see their home and when I went to see this million dollar home on the lake, it was all. The doors were open, the dog was walking around the house, it was boarded to no end. It was just a mess.

Speaker 3: 21:59

But I ended up getting them involved with a geriatric care manager. They were, they came in and they took over and because the only they only had a daughter that lived in Hawaii so nobody else was able to help them. So they got the house cleaned up. We were able to go. You know, took them a few weeks. We were able to go in, put in 24-7, and they were a client for probably a good three, four years until they had to move to a higher level of care. So that's where they get the referrals from same places that we do of care. So that's where they get the referrals from same places that we do the benefits of having a geriatric care manager as a referral source. They're mostly private pay. They can afford to have services, home care, they have the money to pay them. They're able to afford us.

Speaker 3: 22:49

Oftentimes it's an emergency. Many, many times I get the call can you help me? Today it's an emergency, they need help and if they know that you're there to help them and can answer them quickly and cover their client, they're going to call you again. They refer a very high rate of 24-7s, very high rate. You know sometimes it starts out 24 seven. It might cut back a little, but many times they're getting out of unsafe situations and they need oversight.

Speaker 3: 23:18

They will monitor the client, ongoing handle, all the case management needs. Go to their doctor appointments with. Them, communicate with all the caregivers, they have an RN on staff and they monitor medications. You can hire them just to do medications on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. We were unable to do that in New York. We were unable to set up medications, so when our clients needed MediSets or medication setups, they would hire a geriatric care manager and that's all they did. It was a fee-for-basis. They are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Speaker 3: 23:59

As I said, there also can be an emergency contact. The continuity of care. The communications are coordinated between the family members, the doctors, the professionals. They are involved in everything and they go to all their doctor's appointments. They take notes and communicate with the home care company. It's great. Cost containment, inappropriate placements, duplications of services, unnecessarily hospitalizations are avoided. That is often the case.

Speaker 3: 24:31

We would have a lot of clients where you know they weren't doing well. We would call up to the care manager and say look, you know Mrs Jones, her foot's swollen today. She's been confused. Well, sometimes they'd send the nurse and maybe it was nothing necessary that we had to send her right to the hospital. So they would, you know, take care, call the doctor, maybe increase the meds, make a doctor appointment rather than just sending them to the hospital.

Speaker 3: 24:58

Any questions, anybody? No, okay, how to find a geriatric care manager? So you can Google. You can Google geriatric care managers in your area but a lot of them belong to the Aging Life Care Association and I put your. You'll get the slide. I put this link here. You can just go into this link and put your zip code in and it'll show you all the geriatric care managers in your area. You can do a search for that. You all the geriatric care managers in your area. You can do a search for that. Connect with them, try to reach out to them. Let them know what you do. They need your services. They're in the business to help find services for their clients. So they need you. So offer to do an in-service.

Speaker 3: 25:47

I worked with individual geriatric care managers. I also worked with teams where they had 10 social workers, nurses on a team. So you know, offer to give your information, set up an in-service breakfast, lunch, emphasize to them. You can start quickly, you know, because many of their clients need help on an emergency basis. Call us, I know you. You know we're here for you If you need us on a weekend, if you need on an emergency basis, call us. I know we're here for you. If you need us on a weekend, if you need us on a night, call us. And when they called I would call my scheduler and even if we weren't sure, we would just do it. You figure out a way Because if you can't and they keep calling you and I don't have caregivers for a couple weeks, they're not going to call you. So you got to make it happen. So once you start referring to them and they see the excellent service that their client's experiencing, they're going to trust you.

Speaker 3: 26:39

So, as I said earlier, many times when I would talk to prospects on the inquiries that would call in, I couldn't help them. They were totally out of my scope, but I knew they needed some help and guidance. So I would refer. I had a few that I would work with and I would send a few, always send these referrals to them. They appreciate that because they signed these people on as clients. So they're going to remember that when they need somebody they'll call you. So you know it's it's helping them, giving them referrals and you're also helping that person that you can't help on the phone. They will reciprocate and there'll be a great referral source if you offer them.

Speaker 3: 27:19

As I said, we probably had anywhere from 10 to 15 clients with them ongoing they. I feel that once they start using you and they like you and they just call you. They don't call a lot of different agencies. So if you can get in with them and get in a good relationship with them, they're just going to call you. They're not going to call ABC company, they're going to call you because they knew you were there to help them. No questions. Everybody's so quiet on this Friday Hope you're soaking it all in.

Speaker 3: 27:54

Lisa, you got anything.

Speaker 2: 27:56

No, this is all great information, definitely.

Speaker 3: 28:01

So next week. I'm really excited. So this is a two-part series. So I worked personally with Kathy Jacobs. She's a certified care manager. She's going to be joining us on June 7th. She had a team of around 10. We were just. It was a great marriage. We were great partners. She is going to be coming next week and answering questions and telling us what she looks for in home care agencies and how she, you know, finds referrals. So we just thought it would be really good to have somebody have her come and talk and speak.

Speaker 3: 28:39

She's certified by the National Academy of Certified Care Managers and is an advanced professional member with the Aging Life Care Association. She's also a certified aging and place specialist through the National Association of Home Builders and Easy Essential ALZ certified by the Alzheimer's Association. She has extensive experience working with people with disabilities and those with chronic interterminal illnesses. She holds a bachelor's degree in psychology and she has an MBA from the Simon School of Business here in Rochester focused on healthcare operations. She also holds a gerontology certificate from St John Fisher College. Kathy has a heart of gold. Even if somebody can't afford something, she'll help you. I mean, I know they're expensive, but they're in the business, just like we are to help people, so she will. If she can't help this person, she will somehow. She's even offered free services. So I mean, they're not. I know they charge a lot of money but you know, with the services they're giving, it's worth it.

Speaker 3: 29:42

So we're really looking forward to that, and so we came up with some questions that we're going to ask her. So these are a few questions that we're going to be asking her. Why do you think home care and geriatric care management partnerships are so effective? What are you looking for in a home care agency? Once you start working with a home care agency, do you consistently refer to the same company? If so, why, and who do you communicate with regarding client needs on home care team and with your home care team? We're also going to have Kathy's also going to send us some of some other questions and and things that she'd like to maybe answer. Have you answer for her? But we're really looking forward to it. It's going to be great. I hope you know. I hope you got some good information. I hope you can connect with some geriatric care managers because, like I said, it's the hidden gem of referral sources. Any questions? You guys are all so quiet.

Speaker 1: 30:41

I have some questions. I don't have questions. Actually, I'm not going to be here next time. We do this, so I thought I would just add a little perspective.

Speaker 1: 30:49

Sure, the very first time I ever started a business my little entrepreneur spirit, entrepreneurial spirit, that's hard to say I was a geriatric care manager. So I started out as a registered nurse blah blah, blah, blah blah. I worked in the hospital, I worked in case management inside the hospital and I worked in case management for Blue Cross, blue Shield. So I got both sides of the coin. I got to see what it's like to kick people out of the hospital, which I didn't do, by the way. I was very liberal on like just stay for another three days, I would approve anything. But back then we made rounds as the insurance company. I don't know if they still do that. Anyway, after that I decided to do care management and get out of the hospital setting and just do it on my own. So I started a little care management business.

Speaker 1: 31:46

I still have my first newspaper article that was written about me in a little local paper and anyway. So I don't remember. This is before big internet, okay, so that's how old I am. This is 30 years ago probably, uh, but um, uh, I I have this little story about this. So back then oprah winfrey was really popular. Oh, the oprah winfrey show. Like you watched the oprah winfrey show at four o'clock and that was the end of it, you did not miss the Oprah Winfrey show. That was, that was oh. So she was a super, super, super, mega star and everybody wanted to be on the Oprah Winfrey show. So one day I am and this is also in the days of bag phones I had a bag phone, so I had called my home phone to listen to the messages God, I'm so ancient. I called my home phone to listen to see if I had any voicemails, and I did. And somehow or other I got a voicemail from a producer at the Oprah Winfrey show.

Speaker 2: 32:53

Oh, so I'm just driving down the highway going.

Speaker 1: 33:00

You know, I'm at the jackpot, I'm going to be a millionaire, I'm going to be on the Oprah Winfrey show. That is not exactly how that worked out, however, so, um, they get that worked out, however, so, um, I think I freak her. Well, I would have settled for a sweatshirt, but I don't even think I got that. So, anyway, um, I so I got home and I called this guy back. I even remember his name was Tom and I called him back and he said how can I help you? He said, well, here's what I need for the Oprah Winfrey show. And I called him back and he said how can I help you? He said, well, here's what I need for the Oprah Winfrey show. And I mean, I'm just like in heaven. I'm like, whatever you need, I'm giving my firstborn kid. I don't care, just put me on the show. I want to be on the show, I want to meet Oprah Winfrey. He said I need, we need that we're looking for and we cannot find this and we've searched everywhere. Keep that in mind. We are looking for a family, specifically with a senior who is currently living alone at home, who should not be living alone at home, and the family knows it.

Speaker 1: 34:10

And then I went deflated and I said, ok, well, the reason you're not finding that is because no senior is going to get on, who's still got their marbles about them is going to go on the Oprah Winfrey show and no family, probably in front of millions and millions, like 32 million people every day, and say, here, I am at home, but I shouldn't be living alone. I should no longer be living here, but I am. Nobody is going to say that. So that's what they wanted is somebody would come on and say, yeah, no, I shouldn't be living at home alone, but I am, and there's no one.

Speaker 1: 34:52

They were, it was at home alone, but I am, and there's no one. They were, it was, it was. It felt, it felt creepy. At that point I was like, no, you, you know you can trick a senior into saying that, but you're not going to get someone who doesn't have dementia to really say that, especially if their family and their family would be mortified if they thought, you know, they'd be kind of blamed right For not taking care of their seniors. So they were calling care managers to find this needle in a haystack. That would come on in front of 32 million people and say this. So, needless to say, I did not go on the Oprah Winfrey show. Oh my gosh, I was like no, I, yeah, we, yeah, we I get it, but too bad.

Speaker 3: 35:37

I watched it every day four o'clock too yeah, so I anyway.

Speaker 1: 35:41

I know there's some questions here, but I just want to say, as a care manager um, I it was almost always someone who had no one, or someone had family lived out of town and it was really important to me to have the right home care agency involved. It was really important to that family too, and I and as a care manager, I was felt very responsible for the quality of that home care. So I was, it's it. You know, you kind of get into this position where, if you don't know the home care agency, you're going to be a little overbearing at first because you want to make sure that caregiver is doing the right thing. But once you find that home care agency that you know you can trust with your clients, that's it for me. Make my life better because I'm that, I am a substitute daughter at that point, and that is exactly how I felt as a care manager.

Speaker 3: 36:40

Speaking to that, Valerie, it's so true because we had certain care managers. When we heard their name, we're like, oh it's, it's Jen, Okay.

Speaker 3: 36:49

Make sure you put the best people, but I mean we knew that, they knew what she wanted. I mean, cause they didn't want, they wanted this type of caregiver. But then, once they know, you know how to work with them and they you know, it's so true because they take ownership and taking care of this person. You know, and they'll call you hey, you had a caregiver here they didn't have. They're here all day. They're not even emptying the garbage. What's going on?

Speaker 1: 37:12

They were like our boss, so yeah, yeah, you have to play nice. You definitely have to play nice.

Speaker 3: 37:24

All right. So Kim had a question. She said how do if you have done a lunch and learn for a hospital? But I have, but have received no feedbacks or referrals? I've sent three follow-up texts letting them know we are here if they need us and nothing. What should my next move be? Well, that's not unusual. First of all, no, not at all. We're busy. You did the lunch and learn, you gave them your information. Just keep going showing your face. Maybe don't send the text anymore. If you sent three texts, maybe stop in, bring a little cookies, or bring your little you know home box or some brochures, but just stop in. Hey, how you doing. The luncheon room was great a few weeks ago. Any of your patients need discharging? Can I help you? So it's kind of just always going back. Don't feel discouraged if they don't answer you, because they're busy and you know, most times after you have that in-service you don't hear back from them. Would you agree, lisa? I mean.

Speaker 2: 38:23

Yeah, you could also offer you know another additional topic maybe and something else that you want to tell them about, that you do, and just incorporate that too, but I would definitely not give up.

Speaker 3: 38:35

keep going in and showing your face and keep going, you know, let them know that you're still there, yeah, and instead and I would be like face to face if you could stop in or if you can't go in, it's a hospital, sometimes they're weird about that Leave something with at the social work office with her name in a bag and then a follow-up email hey, I left you, you know, just so I could keep remembering you and staggered your information too.

Speaker 2: 39:00

Like, you know, you go one week and you're you take something about how you help with 20, 24 hour care or something you know, and then the next week bring something else and you know, make sure that you're you're, you know, taking just maybe a few brochures out, and then you know, make sure that you're you're, you know, taking just maybe a few brochures out, and then you have a an excuse to get out there every single week or, you know, as often as possible, at least every eight to 10 days because I'll tell you they forget you and I always remember I'd go after a couple of weeks and then a couple of days later I'd get a referral because oh, annette was here from blah blah, blah, you know.

Speaker 3: 39:35

So they remember you, it's, you know. They're just busy. Taylor asks where do the geriatric care managers? Where do geriatric care manager get their clients from? From everywhere social workers I had a slide in there with the attorneys home care agencies, assisted living, memory care. So they get them from all the same, pretty much the same referral sources that we get them from Pretty much. But they're definitely, I definitely would highly recommend trying to connect with some, because I really we loved when we would get referrals from our geriatric care managers because we knew it was going to be a good case and good hours, okay. So what do we got next? So we got Lisa.

Speaker 2: 40:25

Oh, and I think, Abe, did you have a question. Did you want to ask?

Speaker 1: 40:28

I have a question.

Speaker 3: 40:29

My question is yeah is there a, an associate like? Is there a convention, possibly, where they all get together in one place, you know? So, uh, you can walk through the room and possibly you know, meet about 10 of them in one night.

Speaker 3: 40:46

I think you have to be a member for you have to be a member for the Elko Association. That's where they have a lot of meetings. But you know they do yeah, or they're yeah. They do Sometimes, like here, we would have home fair health fairs at the hospitals and they would have a table. So if you, you know, if you have any home, you know home health fairs that are available in your location. We would see geriatric care managers there. They're kind of like hidden. They work from home. They're in the field. So you know, you got to try and connect with them. I used to try and meet with them. You know, go to their office or invite them out for coffee one-on-one. That was a. That's how I had a lot of luck connecting with them.

Speaker 1: 41:28

If you go to that, if you go to that Aging Life Care Association website for national and conferences there and probably a list of their regional I think they used to divide it up by like Midwest and Northeast they would have regional groups and then they would have a regional conference and they would invite vendors, but they probably they wouldn't invite attendees that weren't already part of the association, but but maybe a vendor, the speakers and vendors. So go to that website, start there and then drill down to your area and you might be able to. Also, we used to have a couple of groups that met called social workers and long-term care, and the care managers would often be there, regardless of whether they were a social worker or not, but they would go to that and they would go to uh, we had one had one called breakthrough coalition and they would go to that, which was anybody in senior care so that's kind of local networking groups

Speaker 2: 42:33

okay, there's also a like a fiduciary, uh, like convention as well, and they probably have like affiliate memberships or something like that too, a or affiliate, something or others yeah, on top of being a vendor thank you for the information great any other any other questions before lisa goes through?

Speaker 3: 42:51

her cool summer leave behinds. Any other questions before Lisa goes through?

Speaker 2: 42:57

her cool summer leave behinds. Cool summer, leave behinds.

Speaker 3: 42:59

Cool summer leave. Lisa is so creative. Wait to see him. I love him. Go ahead, lisa, okay.

Speaker 2: 43:04

So June National Hydration Day, and I did this one last year too. But you know, a lot of us are running and running and running and we forget some important things like drinking water, and so I think that if you add a little to it it makes it a little easier to get down. But this one for June 23rd Water is Life. You add the flavors, stay hydrated on us, and so you can add any message you want here. But I just think this is cute. You know, you slap your sticker on there with your logo and you can kind of maybe tie a ribbon around this water bottle hole, punch the leave behind and then add, you know, those little like sticky circles, like little glue circles. You can just kind of stick that on the water bottle with maybe one of these little drink packets and you can take that out to one of your like social workers or something, or you could take it like a whole case of water and maybe like a box or two of these little packets. And, you know, just make it look cute and take it out and just say we care about you, we want you to take care of yourself and, you know, drink some water. Happy national hydration day. And next slide, oh, and all the like links to. So if you don't want to have to search for these things, you know there's links to Amazon and then the links to the Canva and Google Docs where you can make these changes and make them your own with your logos and everything. So each of those pages will have that June. You know. All we have is now June is Alzheimer and Brain Awareness Month. Again, you can create something here. You can say our caregivers are skilled in, or our caregivers know what it takes to take care of someone at home who is experiencing these things. Next slide yeah. And so you can take these little they're large print paperback brain games like word searches and crosswords out. You might have some leftovers from our May Older Americans Month giveaways, but I think these are really, really cute. And just remember to print out some stickers with your contact information, your logos, and maybe slap them on the front, back or even inside so they know where these are coming from. And then your standard silicone bracelets. They're purple, really cute and inexpensive.

Speaker 2: 45:09

There, this one's my favorite, because nobody cares that it's National Lobster Day on June 15th, but we can use a little play on words here and say, call us now for snappy discharges and be home in time for dinner. So I think this would be really cute. Just take it out, maybe again, just hole, punch this with a little ribbon or something, and then to give away with this you know, snapped Cheez-Its kind of a play on words there or your healthier alternative, the Harvest Snaps. You could take a few out, or, you know, just pair those with that, leave behind, and I think it's just really cute. Next one celebrate Father's Day. You don't have to give this to all the men or people who you think are fathers. They don't have to be. We're just celebrating the day. Take this out, just let them know that you're here. It's just another reason, another excuse to go out and talk to those social workers or anyone that could possibly be a referral source.

Speaker 2: 46:02

And I paired them with. You know, get a little bag, a cute bag with a ribbon on top. Throw 10 of these root beer barrels in there, add a key chain, boom. You're good to go, and you can pair this with anything. It's cool to care. Keep cool on us. Again, you can add any messaging here that you'd like, but you know you don't want to freeze these because you're going to be driving around all over the place, and so you want to keep these as they come to you. But you know again, a little ribbon, a little hole punch, add your logo here and take this out and your social workers and anyone else that you're visiting, your care managers, they will put these into their freezer and use them later. They'll eat them when it's hot outside or use them for something.

Speaker 2: 46:46

Celebrate our independence since 1776. So July 4th is also coming up and I think this is a kind of one of those things that we do every year. You can pair this with a little lapel pins of the flag and a little these handheld American flags. I had one in my at my desk, in my pencil holder, forever and a day, and I just loved my little American flag. And we do have Canadian clients as well, so I did want to create something for them. Um, just to honor them and let them know. You know, happy Canada Day, and same lapel pins and handheld flags there for them.

Speaker 2: 47:24

August. August is National Wellness Month, and so a couple of takes on wellness month. So this one here, and I love the little reminder. You know, tie a string around your finger to remember to take care of yourself. So research shows self-care helps manage stress and promotes happiness. So take care of yourself, even if it's just walking outside for 10 minutes and taking a deep breath. But here's the twine, here, the link to that. It's a little eye under eye masks, for you know, just relax for a couple of minutes. Shower steamers you can pair again, pair this with lots of different things, and the shower steamers are like individually wrapped. So are the eye masks.

Speaker 2: 48:00

Another one prescription for self-care must take a 10-minute break, preferably outside, take a deep breath, pop open one capsule for maximum wellness, and I'll show you what these little capsules look like. They're super cute, they come, they. No, that's the wrong side, sorry. There are little messages inside these pills and they are just positive affirmations for the day, and so just little cute messages. So you know, grab some of these little bags, maybe hole, punch this, leave behind, run the ribbon through there and add like three or four of those. Maybe you add a shower steamer as well or something else that makes sense, and just take that out and show your folks that you care and they need to just take a break.

Speaker 2: 48:45

The importance of exercise, promoting health and wellness. So here I'd put a little message that you know we're trained in guiding patients through their prescribed home exercise regimen, called today. So we want them to know that yes, we can't, you know, do those exercises for you really, but we can guide you through. Our caregivers can help with this when you go home from a sniff, or your PT will continue, because we'll guide you through that little one sheet that they usually send home with you and then you can use these little motivational stress balls. There's some bracelets too that I didn't add just because they didn't look good on the slide, but there's 72 pieces total, so 36 each is little stress balls and they have cute messaging and the bracelets kind of mirror that. Again, same baggies, just you can reuse these over and over. We have a trillion of those laying around.

Speaker 2: 49:35

Um, august is also also national safe at home week. Let's light the way you know. Call now for a free, free home safety assessment. I found that when I could get out to do an assessment, almost every single time would I get someone to sign up for care. So that's just a cute little thing to mention. You know, hey, 24 hour home care, home home safety assessment. And then I just paired it with these little, these little flashlights here. They're key chains. You can slap your logo onto this.

Speaker 2: 50:05

I did see and I said this like last week too, but I did find some cute lights you can kind of like stick to anything, and so I was thinking that that would be really cool for like, even if it's just one step up to just, you know, make it a lot safer in the home.

Speaker 2: 50:20

So it might be like something you could use that people would know you for. Last one, this was used by Annette actually, and I just changed it around and made it more of a handout leave behind but coffee time on me and you and you can redeem by text only to set a date. This is super cute because you are taking this out to and you could bring coffee to someone or schedule something outside of the facility or community that you're going to. But this is a great way to get in front of okay, a, get in front of someone one-on-one and B or two to get the social worker's cell phone number. So now you guys can text back and forth and that is gold right there. If you can text the social worker and they text back. I mean, what more could you ask for yeah, and I think that is all of the lead behind that's it.

Speaker 3: 51:10

Yeah, and then sometimes I would, you could also um kind of switch it up a little and say give me your coffee order and bring them. You know what their Starbucks order is. Um, I would put these in little thank you cards sometimes and they would text me and say oh, that is so cute, I will have a Starbucks. Blah, blah, blah you know, so it's kind of it works if you have nothing, you know nothing else to do. I would always have these in my drawer.

Speaker 2: 51:36

Yeah. And you could write a little handwritten note, like you said, find some really pretty, maybe like a really pretty envelope, maybe, like I found these ones, but I didn't know what size they were and they had like a gold ribbon kind of on the left-hand side and it was just so pretty. That would be cute Little handwritten note. Love to you, know, have coffee talk with you or something, something cute like that.

Speaker 3: 51:59

Great. I can't believe we're in summer already, but these are great ideas, thanks, okay. Well, thank you everybody for coming today. We hope you make it on June 7th to listen to Kathy Jacobs. She's great. I think we're just going to be a really great speaker and we're really looking forward to talking with her. If you don't have any other questions, you know we were happier here. You have a great Memorial day weekend. Thanks for coming and please keep coming back, cause we'll be sharing a lot of great stuff. Yep, glad to see you guys. Have a great weekend. Have a great stuff. Yep, glad to see you guys. Have a great weekend. Have a great day. Bye.