Joining us all the way from New York, NY, we are thrilled to present an exclusive interview with a true authority in geriatric care, Anne C. Sansevero! As the President of the Board of Directors for the Aging Life Care Association and Founder/CEO of HealthSense, Anne brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the table. In the spirit of Independence, she sheds light on the vital role of Aging Life Care Professionals in ensuring the well-being of older adults and their families.
Get ready for a captivating discussion on navigating the complexities of aging and discovering essential support systems. Let's celebrate independence by empowering ourselves with valuable insights and advice from a seasoned professional! Click below to watch the full interview with Anne C. Sansevero and gain valuable insights into Aging Life Care Professionals.
#AgingLifeCare #GeriatricCare #ElderlySupport #IndependenceCelebration #InterviewVideo #WatchNow
To reach out to Anne C. Sansevero or to learn more about HealthSense LLC and Aging Life Care Association, there are a number of ways to get in touch:
Contact Anne C. Sansevero RN, MA, GNP, CCM
Phone: (646) 241-3463
email: anne@health-sense.org
HealthSense Website:www.health-sense.org
Aging Life Care Association Website:www.aginglifecare.org
Transcript:
[Jonathan] On this episode of Home Helpers Water Cooler Chat, you'll meet a remarkable individual who has dedicated her life to improving the well-being of older adults and their families. Anne Sansevero, the President of the Board of Directors for the Aging Life Care Association and founder and CEO of HealthSense, LLC, is a true champion in the field of geriatric care. She is a master's prepared geriatric nurse practitioner and a seasoned nursing professional with over 30 years of experience in the field, bringing a wealth of expertise to her role.
Anne's passion lies in being an aging life care professional, guiding families through the complexities of aging and ensuring the highest quality of care. Today, we're going to delve into great topics with Anne, from understanding the role of an aging life care professional to finding their services nationwide.
We'll also explore whether insurance covers these services and discover if there's help available during those urgent moments when you need it most.
Are you ready to learn more about aging life care professionals? Let's go!
Hi, Anne. Thank you so much for joining us. How are you doing today?
[Anne] I'm great, Jonathan. Thank you for having me here.
[Jonthan] It's great to have you here. So let's go ahead and dive into it. The first question I have for you is: What is an aging life care professional?
[Anne] So, Jonathan, an aging life care professional, was previously known as a geriatric care manager, but we have changed the terminology. This profession involves a deep understanding of the aging process and serves as a guide and navigator for elderly individuals in need. It's almost like being a quarterback for their aging journey. Nowadays, healthcare is fragmented, with specialization in medicine and less communication among medical professionals. Hospital stays have become shorter, leaving older clients, especially those in their late eighties and nineties, with multiple chronic health issues that require coordinated care. They may also experience instability in their gait and falls, especially when taking multiple medications.
Care managers are professionals you can hire to assess your situation at home and provide recommendations for better aging. They are also available to be contacted during crises or as a sounding board for any issues. Many people in this profession have backgrounds in nursing, social work, physical therapy, or occupational therapy, and they all have advanced educational qualifications in the healthcare field. Being a member of the Aging Life Care Association ensures that you have the necessary credentials for your role. The association offers a certification exam and upholds high standards of ethics and guidelines for practice, which are essential in this line of work.
[Jonathan] Very nice. I can see how this would be very useful for an elderly person, anywhere, to be able to maintain their independence. So, tell me, in the United States, how would someone go about finding an aging life care professional?
[Anne] As mentioned earlier, I am the president of the Aging Life Care Association, which is a nonprofit association with a national reach. There are chapters throughout the country, and you can find more information on the aginglifecare.org website. To locate an aging expert, simply visit the website and click on the "Find an Aging Expert" button. You can search by zip code, name, or county, or use the advanced search option. The search engine will display the nearest aging life care professionals in your area, based on their expertise and geographic proximity. You can learn about their specialties, qualifications, how long they have been registered with the Aging Life Care Association, and if they have expertise in specific settings.
Some professionals, like myself, have subspecialties such as geriatric nurse practitioners with a medical focus, collaborating with medical teams and running medical homes. Others may specialize in family mediation or working with the courts for guardianship, with backgrounds in social work or legal fields. In our profession, we not only have our own qualifications but also special niches. This diversity can be seen in the search results, and we often refer clients to each other based on our unique skills and expertise.
[Jonathan] Excellent. I can tell you that aging life care specialists are worth every dollar. We use several of them in the area here. So, thank you so much for that. Now, let me ask you this question: in terms of paying for the services, can insurance pay for services or is it private pay? How does that work?
[Anne] Unfortunately, regular insurance does not reimburse for the service, which I hope will change in the future, because I really think that it could make a huge difference from a health policy perspective. But currently, there are some long-term care insurance policies that do cover some care management assessments. So if you have a long-term care insurance policy, take a good look at that policy. It's a good thing to do anyway to know what it actually covers. What kind of care does it cover, and what the elimination period is? But also, do they cover the services of an aging life care professional, an independent consultant like somebody like us? We will have the qualifications and if the company pays for it, you can get reimbursed for that assessment. And potentially some companies offer reimbursement for assessments and a certain stipend annually. So that would be a good thing to check if you have a long-term care insurance policy.
If you don't have a long-term care insurance policy and you have Medicare or Medicaid, unfortunately, that does not cover the services just yet of an aging life care professional. We do. Many of us will take a sliding scale. We price our services really on the geographic area that we're in and the cost of doing business. And some of us have tour manager associates as well as the founders and owners that offer slightly lower prices. We strategically try and use our time to the best value for the client.
So if you are using an aging life care professional, if you're privately paying for the service, being organized and having as much information on an intake as possible and being specific with the needs will really help you use the service strategically. And this is it can be really saving you a lot of money in the long term, especially with benefits navigation, like trying to help you work with your attorney on doing a better benefit application for Medicaid or trying to help you navigate to a long-term care insurance policy to make sure that you qualify. You know, if you get an expert in this field, it can save you a lot of hours on what is often a lengthy and bureaucratic process. So you'll get the payback that way.
I also suggest that if you are in a job where your hourly rate is, you get paid a very high hourly rate, but you're spending an enormous amount of time navigating in an area that you're uncertain about, not bringing in and investing in a professional that can really strategically help you will be a good long term care investment as well. The other thing I would finally say, Jonathan, is there's no price for peace of mind. Right? And when you have somebody you know is your loved one is getting the best care possible and that you've got the expertise to that or that person also knows a lot of nonprofit local resources that may be very cost-effective for you to use that you didn't know existed out there. It makes it a really worthwhile investment as well.
[Jonathan] All right. That makes a lot of sense. Yes. And I did not know that about long-term care insurance; it may pay for your services. So, yes. Our viewers need to look at their policies if they have long-term care insurance.
Can we go back to crisis management? So the idea of accepting calls or taking urgent calls after hours, is that something that most aging life care professionals do? Is it just some of them? How would I find out?
[Anne] So many of us will be available to be responsive after hours. It really depends on how you're using us. If you're just calling us out of the blue and want us to go right away to an urgent situation, that can often be very hard to come in at a crisis situation, obviously, if it's during the week, it's easier. But if it's on a weekend and we don't know you at all, some may be available, some may not.
If you have already engaged an aging life care professional, now you have kind of like I call it a black umbrella. You have us in the system with you. We have all of your database. We know what your medical issues are. We know we're in communication with your team. And then if you need to activate us off hours, it's much, much easier for us. We're operating from a level of preparedness. We know what your medications are. We know who the healthcare professionals are that we can advocate for, and we can advocate a lot more effectively then, and many of us will accept texts or calls after hours.
Some care managers may bill a little extra for the hourly rate because their team members are going to want to be paid a little extra for that service. But we do feel it's very important to have responsiveness in a timely fashion, especially for our older, aging adults that may have issues that crop up after, you know, hours. You know, illness does not just go Monday to Friday, 9 to 5, and especially trying to avoid hospitalizations or emergency room visits. It's great to have an aging life care professional that can mitigate some of these problems, like potentially treat and get treatment for an infection early to stop any visit. So I would just, when you are interviewing an aging life care professional, your systems ask that question often ask them how they handle situations like that, and they'll be very upfront about it.
[Jonathan] Okay, well, thank you. And for all the information that you provided today, I think it's a treat that you have joined us today. So I'm really excited to share this video with our audience.
Before you go, I do want you to share a little bit more information about your company HealthSense, where you're the CEO and founder. Can you share a little bit more information?
[Anne] I will indeed. So as I said, Jonathan, I was a nurse practitioner working in an acute care neurology hospital, NYU Langone, for many years. I started seeing the rotation of adults and older adults coming out of the hospital and back into the hospital for problems that I felt could have been coordinated better in the community. I reached out to the Aging Life Care Association, found out about a group of entrepreneurial support for people starting their businesses, and started my company almost 20 years ago. I started out as an independent practitioner and got a lot of business and mentoring support from my colleagues in this association organization, and then grew my practice over time. And I now have seven managers that work with me. I have a cognitive enrichment division that's a special subspecialty where we do engagement and enrichment for socially isolated adults and those who have dementia. And I also have a benefit navigator who's a social worker who helps counsel clients that need navigation with long-term care insurance or other benefits.
So we are serving the Manhattan area, the New York metropolitan area. And I just love the work we do. I think we really make an impact on the lives around us. We're always trying to optimize aging. We love trying to do preventative work if we can, but we're there also in times of need. So that's HealthSense in a nutshell.
[Jonathan] Your company is a perfect example of how aging life care professionals can specialize in different services, right? So one aging life care professional may not be the right fit for a particular senior, and another one might. Would that be a correct statement?
[Anne] It would be. There are, you know, as I said, many of us have different types of backgrounds. So, for example, if you have a client who has a serious behavioral health issue or needs counseling and psychotherapy, my social work colleagues that have that as their specialty are going to be a better fit. If you have a client that has a lot of maybe complex medical issues or you need to set up a medical home or where you need that kind of triage, I certainly might be a great fit for that practice. A lot of us also, though, look at the bigger picture. We're all experts in kind of figuring out transitions of care, and housing needs. We're always able to refer to a really broad resource group, which includes elder care attorneys, daily money managers, move managers, and all kinds of resources that we can bring into the home. Jonathan, that some that are out there, a lot of people don't realize that, you know, like you have a home care company, home is where a lot of people want to be. You can be at home with the right support and resources to age in place. And so we like to, we all have a very strong inclination there, as well as advising on senior housing options when that is not an option."
[Jonathan] Excellent. Well, I want to thank you once again for joining us for this episode of Home Helpers Water Cooler Chat. I will provide your contact information in the video as well as in the comments. So, anybody who's interested can reach out to you if they need to. Any last words before we head out today?
[Anne] Just to say, it's an absolute pleasure to talk about this amazing profession. And if there are any of your listeners out there who are in the helping field, such as nurses, occupational therapists, or social workers, who may want to consider a second career, you should check out our website. Check out the information about membership and explore the possibility of potentially starting your own business in this field. There is a huge need for more of us as the aging demographic is exploding, and we need to find more solutions for people to age well.
[Jonathan] Thank you once again for joining us. We would also like to extend our gratitude to our audience for being a part of this experience. Until next time, we encourage you to stay hydrated and engage in excellent conversations with Home Helpers' Water Cooler Chat. Take care
[Anne] Thank you, Jonathan.
[Jonathan] Thank you.
HOME HELPERS OF BRADENTON
Home Helpers of Bradenton is one of the region's leading home care franchises specializing in comprehensive services for seniors. Home Helpers' sole mission is to make life easier for clients and their families. Based in Bradenton, Florida, the company serves all of Manatee County, including the communities of Anna Maria, Bradenton, Bradenton Beach, Ellenton, Holmes Beach, Lakewood Ranch, Longboat Key, Palmetto, and Parrish. For more information or to request a free in-home care assessment, contact our office at (941) 499-5946 or visit our website at www.homehelpershomecare.com/bradenton
