Care Management
Care Management and Care Navigation
Care Management
The service that helps the older adult, the family members and the health care providers to organize, coordinate and deliver the best quality of care possible under the circumstances at hand.
Care Navigation
A service that helps family caregivers, older adults and care giving professionals to know who to call, where to turn to and what to say at the different points on the care continuum in other to obtain the needed care and to explore the care services available.
Hiring a care manager should be no different than hiring an attorney to help with legal problems or a CPA to help with tax problems. Most people don’t attempt to solve legal problems on their own. And the use of professional tax advice can be an invaluable investment. The same is true of using an experienced manager.
Unfortunately, there are too few care managers, and the public is so poorly informed about the services of a care manager, that valuable resources that could be provided, go lacking.
The Services We Perform
The care managers on this platform are experience, insured, licensed, bonded and accredited and can provide the following services:
Level of care assessments.
Care planning services
Care and or case management services
Resource and referral development
Home safety evaluations
Monitoring and oversight of care
Senior advocacy
Crisis intervention
Care facility review
Coordination of services and service providers
Assistance with the organization of relocating a loved one
Here Are The Top 15 Things Our Care Managers Can Help You With
- Conduct a level of care assessment to identify caregiving problems and to recommend caregiving solutions
- Provide crisis intervention in the home, at a hospital and at a care facility
- Screen, match and arrange for in-home help or other caregiving services including assistance in hiring qualified caregivers at home
- Function as a liaison to families who are far away and even those who are close by for overseeing, coordinating and responding to family members in the event of a caregiving problem
- Facilitating the relocation of an older adult to and from a retirement community, assisted living facility or a nursing home
- Provide advocacy and eldercare education to families and other care team members
- Provide eldercare counselling and support
- Review financial, legal and medical issues and to offer referrals to all appropriate medical and care specialist
- Provide financial, legal and medical review and assessments for the application of benefits including Veteran Administration aid and attendance benefit, long term care insurance and state Medicaid waivers
- Help family members keep SANE and to find MEANING and JOY as they juggle responsibilities in all their caregiving roles
- Assist with the monitoring of medications
- Oversee and direct care provided at the home
- Provided patient and family education
- Provide personal counseling
- Provide hands on care
A Hypothetical Example
Sally is a single widowed mother with two teenage children and one school aged child. Her mother-in-law, Mary, has a stroke which apparently causes some memory loss as well as some disability in being able to fend for herself. Sally decides to move in with her mother-in-law because she had promised the father-in-law on his end of life and last wish that she will care for Mary and keep her out of the nursing home. In return, Sally who is temporarily out of work, has a place to live and share her mother in-law’s retirement income.
Mary is anything but easy to take care of. She has mood swings and often forgets what she is doing. She seems to display a lot of anger and takes it out on Sally, calling her all kinds of horrible names. She is never happy and is constantly calling for attention. In trying to take care of her own children as well as her mother in-law, Sally is quickly being drained of her physical and emotional strength.
In addition, Mary’s son and two daughters are happy she is taking care of their mother since they are now absolved of the responsibility, but they treat Sally terribly. They also call her awful names and accuse her of being a “leech”. On the other hand, they have plenty of advice on how to deal with their mother but never offer any of their own time to help. After all, they reason, Sally is receiving benefits from caring for their mother and logically she should be responsible for all the care.
On the advice of a friend, Sally hires a care manager, Susie Mathews, who comes highly recommended in solving family disputes. Susie is a certificated mediator. Susie first does a care assessment of Mary and comes away suspecting there is more to her personality disorder than a stroke. She makes arrangements to take Mary to a geriatric Physician who does a complete physical assessment and recognizes that Mary’s mental state is due more to improper medications and severe depression. Mary’s medications are reduced and changed, and she is put on antidepressants. In addition, her diet is upgraded, she is to receive more fluids, more healthy foods and especially receive vitamin supplements. Particularly important is a prescription for vitamin B12 shots.
The doctor insists on as much exercise as Mary can handle. Susie, the care manager, helps convince Mary of the need for her new care program and helps oversee her following through on the exercise program. Over the ensuing months Mary’s lack of memory and abusive behavior become less severe. She is also better able to care for herself without Sally’s assistance.
In addition to the assessment, one of the first things Susie does is to contact Sally’s brother in-law who is the family leader. Susie has a long talk with the brother in-law and gives him a different perspective on the issues. With a better understanding of the situation, the brother in-law calls a family meeting and Susie mediates a successful resolution of the family mistreatment of Sally and the ensuing bad feelings. Everyone, including Sally is called upon to do their part in managing the care of her mother in-law and to work on better family relations. The issue of Sally “sponging” off her mother in-law is addressed and an adequate solution is agreed to by all. Susie will follow up in a month to make sure everyone is following through on his or her commitment. This is the power of a care manager.