Senior Care Live
Senior Care Live
Senior Care Live: June 13, 2026
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Listen in as host Steve Kuker, President of Senior Care Consulting, visits with JC Pfeister, Owner of Seniors Helping Seniors - KC Metro South. Steve and JC discuss how Seniors Helping Seniors can help you remain independent in your own home for years to come. Steve describes a typical day and many of the issues experienced in the life of SO many seniors who are struggling to live at home. JC explains how Seniors Helping Seniors can address all these issues to help seniors remain safe and independent in their own home for years to come. Seniors Helping Seniors can address issues such as nutrition and hydration, hygiene concerns, medication reminders, socialization reducing depression and isolation, transportation to medical appointments and social events, companionship with a relatable and reliable friend, and the family can rest assured their loved one is being well cared for. Steve and JC compare the monthly cost of a senior care community to the number of hours you could be receiving loving support in your own home. Steve has a quick review of what to determine before searching for a senior care community. #SeniorCare #SeniorCareLive #SeniorCareConsulting #SeniorLiving #KansasCitySeniorCare #SeniorCarePlacement #SeniorCareAdvisor #Franchise #SeniorCareFranchise #VA #VAAidandAttendance #LongTermCare #Medicaid #Medicare #KansasCity #HomeCare
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Are you caring for an aging loved woman? Are you a senior searching for mentors? Welcome to Senior Care Live, a program dedicated to you providing information, education, and resources for seniors and their caregivers. And now, America's senior care consultant, Steve Kuker.
Speaker 2Hello and welcome to Senior Care Live. I'm Steve Kuker, your senior care consultant, and I really appreciate you tuning in today. We have an excellent program on tap with my friend and special guest in studio, Mr. JC Pfeister. He's the owner and operator of Seniors Helping Seniors, KC Metro South. And JC, welcome back to Senior Care Live. Steve, thanks for having me back on the show. Much appreciated. Yeah, yeah, you bet. It's good to see you. Yeah, good to see you too. All right, so if you're listening and this catches your attention, I think it will. You need to stay tuned right here. Let me give you a phone number that you're going to want to take note of. 913-407-7550. That's Seniors Helping Seniors, KC Metro South, 913-407-7550. And you could also go online, seniorshelping seniors.com. JC, just put in your city or your zip code and you'll pop right up. That is absolutely right. Yep. Okay. So last time we had , , Margie Burton on the caregiver of the year. She was fantastic by the way.
Speaker 3She was awesome. She did such a great job on the show last time.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, she was she was fantastic. so and I want to talk about her maybe here in a little bit, but , let's just kind of describe a typical day in the life of , unfortunately so many seniors in our area, and I want to compare and contrast, you know, on your own versus with a little help from seniors helping seniors. So let's start off. , so it's pretty common, again, unfortunately, for a senior maybe to be living at home alone, kind of in isolation, and they may be suffering from you know poor nutrition, maybe poor hydration, they might be missing meals. , I met a fella and I cringed when I heard this. Every day he ate a package of Oreos and two cups of coffee. And I'm like, dude, that's that's going to catch up with you. This is not good. Yeah, exactly. No water.
Speaker 3No.
Speaker 2Two cups of coffee. Two cups. a whole package of Oreos throughout the day. I'm like, how are you upright at this point? I mean, that's just horrible. But , I'm sure you you've seen you know poor nutrition and poor hydration.
Speaker 3We have. We have, and I think that's really where our caregivers can step in and help. Meal preparation is one of the big things that we do. We have caregivers that are very passionate about prepping meals, and so we can come in, we can make, you know, we can make a breakfast, we can prepare lunch, dinner, and then we can do that again the next day. , and so we have a lot of flexibility. , we always tell folks that we're not chefs, but , we do a pretty good job of putting nutritional meals in front of our clients. Yeah.
Speaker 2A package of Oreos and two cups of coffee or a home cooked meal by your caregiver, maybe not a chef, but hey, they can cook a nice meal and , , why not? And then the meal prep, right? So they might be able to cook meals for maybe the next two or three days and you have them in the fridge available.
Speaker 3Yeah, absolutely. You know, I mentioned that we come in the next day, but you know, one of the things that we will do is we will prep meals for two to three days out. And so again, it's about having a a great meal for clients in their home that's , easy for them to get to, warm up and , and make sure that they're getting the nutrition that they need. Absolutely.
Speaker 2And then medications, this is a huge issue. , I always talk about you know some of the things that should trigger the conversation of considering moving from your home to a senior care community, or, and I should probably expand that, or having seniors helping seniors come in, is not taking your medications properly, maybe not taking them on time, maybe not taking them at all. And I don't know about you. I mean, I take , X number of medications, and sometimes I forget to take my own meds. And I am not a senior yet. I'm moving in that direction, but I'm not there yet. But , it's easy to do forgetting your medications. And the older we are, the more important and the more dangerous that may become.
Speaker 3Yeah, and one of the things with our intake process is our fantastic team is going to come out and they're going to do a needs assessment, and medication reminders are a large part of what we do for our clients. So we can't administer medication based upon the licensing that we have. Yeah. ,, because we're a home health agency, non-medical, non-skilled. ,, but we definitely can do the reminders, and we can also doc,ent , those reminders for ,, you know, the family, and then they can see that the medicine is actually being taken on a on a daily basis. That is excellent.
Speaker 2, another issue, , again, unfortunately, if you have a senior living at home, maybe living in isolation, and they're just not getting a lot of things, these things done properly, hygiene situation, you know, a poor hygiene. And maybe it's painful to get up and move around and try to get in and out of the shower, or God forbid, try to get in and out of a bathtub. That's a fall risk. that's a fall waiting to happen. , and so it you could a poor hygiene issue, and again, that could lead to other medical situations. that's a very important issue as well.
Speaker 3Yeah, absolutely. You know, and so the services that we provide, we'll do companionship, we do lighthouse work, we do meal prep, we'll run errands for people, we'll take them to appointments. But then the other thing is that personal care component, right? So toileting, bathing, grooming, assistance with dressing, and that's one of the things that , that we do consistently for our clients and our caregivers are trained in that as well.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's excellent. , another issue is and I see this all the time, and particularly it seems like if someone has some some memory challenges, and we have some some maybe some mild cognitive impairment, maybe Alzheimer's, maybe another form of dementia. But wearing the same clothing day after day after day, that that that's another issue. , I think I would put that in the dignity category as well as maybe the hygienic category.
Speaker 3Yeah, and that's one of the things that our caregivers are going to be very observant of. And again, I mentioned that, you know, as we come in and we do that home assessment and we do that client visit, those are things that we're going to pick up on as we talk with our client, we talk with the family members and understanding what their needs are.
Speaker 2Excellent, excellent. And then , we have that that isolation and the social withdrawal. I I remember speaking with one gentleman and he said, you know, we lost my dad, my mom didn't want to move, and she didn't want someone coming into the house. , she just kind of shut down, she also shut everyone else out, and and she would just sit alone by the window and look outside for five years. And she just drew she just grew over time more and more withdrawn and turned within and isolated, and and that social withdrawal and that isolation leads to depression, and and now we have some major issues.
Speaker 3Yeah, and you know, like I mentioned, is companionship is so big for what our team does. And I've been on this show multiple times, Steve, and I'm going to I'm going to make a bold statement today is I truly believe that we have the best caregivers in the city. I don't doubt that our model is that we hire seniors, we hire a more mature caregiver to care for seniors. And so it's about that life experience, it's about that reliability, but also that relatability that is so huge from a companionship perspective. And that goes to the care plan. ,, and you know, sometimes there's a chance for us to get one of our clients out of the house, yeah, right? Yeah, ,, sometimes that's not ,, you know, in the cards, but how do we grow that relationship in a way that our clients are looking forward to our caregivers coming? And there are numerous examples that I have , of where families are calling in, our clients are calling in, a husband or a wife is calling in, and it's that it's that initial resistance to having a stranger in the home, but giving us a chance, right? And the other thing is we take such pride in knowing our caregiver team and what makes them tick, and then understanding that with our clients and how we match our caregivers and clients. And and again, I'm making a bold statement is I think we have the best caregivers in the city.
Speaker 2I love that, and I love your confidence, and I also agree with you. And the average age of your caregiver is 62. Right at 62. I love the relatability and the reliability, nothing against a younger caregiver, but you have more in common when your average age is 62 and you're caring for someone who might be 78 or 80 years old, and you can build that companionship and that relatability, and that's worth millions right there. So , missed or postponed medical appointments, I can't tell you how many times I've heard about that, and then just having some loneliness, just little to maybe know, like the person I mentioned earlier, no human interaction. He had to go down there and you have that withdrawal. So unfortunately, again, you have so many people in a situation like that. If you have seniors helping seniors in your life, and if you would allow them to come in and just give this a chance, you can have home cooked meals, enjoy nutritious meals, and drink properly , every day, reminders to take your medications, bathing assistance, improved hygiene, laundry is done, and available socialization. Someone can take you to your appointments. You don't have to miss your next doctor's appointment, which is super important. Reduce loneliness, enjoy meaningful h,an interaction. If you want a completely different situation, reach out to Seniors Helping Seniors, KC Metro South at 913-407-7550. And now let's not forget about the Senior Care Live question of the week. If you want your Seniors Helping Seniors Caregiver to take you to your appointments, you must have them drive your car. Is that statement true or false? What do you think?
SpeakerYou're listening to Senior Care Live on the Senior Care Broadcasting Network. For more information, visit SeniorCareLive.com. We'll have more with Steve coming up next.
Speaker 2Speaker 3
Speaker 2
Welcome back. You're listening to Senior Care Live on the Senior Care Broadcasting Network. For more information, visit SeniorCareLive.com. All right, let's get back to that Senior Care Live question of the week. If you want your seniors helping seniors caregiver to take you to your appointments, you must have them drive your car. Is that statement true or false? And the answer is false. The answer is false.
Speaker 3And JC, why is that statement false? Well, sometimes our caregivers are going to drive our clients' cars, sometimes the caregivers are going to drive their own car. It's about a 50-50 mix, Steve. One of the things that we take a lot of pride in is all of the background checks that we take our caregivers through. Again, based upon our licensing in the state of Kansas. As I've mentioned before, there's no licensing requirement in Missouri. Yeah. But we follow all of our Kansas licensing, and part of that is eight background checks. One of those is a motor vehicle record check. How many background checks? Eight. Background checks, two reference checks, a T B test, and a health assessment that's done by a nurse. So one of those checks that we do is also a motor vehicle record check, making sure that , there's up-to-date insurance as well. So, you know, it's all about client preference. Some of the clients are more comfortable in their cars, some of the clients look at our caregivers' cars and say, I can ride in that. I'll be okay. We'll take your car. Right. And some of our clients don't have cars, right? Right, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I mean it's a it's a mix.
Speaker 2So if you're going to go out and hire your own, JC, we need to have a whole show on hiring your own caregiver and the hidden risks and liabilities on that versus working with , a quality provider like seniors helping seniors. Like you said, and I want to come back to your caregivers here in a minute, but the people you just brought into your house off the street, did you do eight background checks on them? Usually not. Okay. That's just one of the many benefits of working with JC Pfeister with Seniors Helping Seniors, KC Metro South at 913-407-7550. And JC, you made a bold statement earlier, and I agree with you, but let's talk about that. Your bold statement was I think we have the best caregivers and the best team , in the business. Let's talk about that for a minute.
Speaker 3Yeah, absolutely. So I'm going to brag on our back office team here , first. And you know, as we've grown as an agency, one of the things that was very important to me as the owner of Seniors Helping Seniors was having a team that was very experienced in home care. We have over 50 years of experience sitting in our office , related to home care. That's very, very powerful. Yeah. , we've built this team as is that we want our team to , continue to grow with our business and be there for the long term. , not transactional, not looking for, you know, the next job next week. Yeah. And, you know, the other piece is our caregivers. And again, I mean, we have CNAs, we have retired nurses, asterisk. Everything we do is non-medical. Yeah. And then just this really good pocket of do-gooders that are in the business for the right reason, right? It's about giving back, it's about taking care of seniors in the community. And that is, I mean, that is so important. I have spent a lifetime in relation to building teams. And one of the things that I take the most pride in throughout my career is building very high functioning teams. So as we set down this road with seniors helping seniors, how do we build a very high performing team? Right. And , I was I always joked with the team as I say, I want people in the room that are smarter than me. I don't want to be the smartest person in the room. Yep, yep. And and that's what we've done, right, with our back office team and how we continue to hire, ,, train and and grow our caregivers. And again, being in it for the right reason. It's not just a paycheck, it's about making a difference. That's why I make the bold statement of I think we have the best caregivers in the city.
Speaker 2Well, I agree with that again, and I think you've we've talked we've touched on this before. This isn't a transactional type of a process or a business. This is a relationship business. And how many times have I heard someone say they're working with, you know, XYZ home care , provider and someone just didn't show up that day, and they call the office, the office not is they're not even aware that they had a no-call no show. And and and you know what they they said, and I've heard this many, many times over the years. Well, I sure hope they show up tomorrow. That's very transactional, and that's a very low, that's a very low quality , of an approach right there. So you don't have those things going on with seniors helping seniors. KC Metro South, 913-407-7550. And again, you know, we talked about, you know, how could it look like? How could your day look like if you had some help? And you know, and one of those is you know, that socialization with your caregiver and the reduces of depression, reduces that isolation and all of the things that come along with that. We had Margie , Burton on the on the show last month, and she said, I thought I was just volunteering to go have fun with these sweet people that I get the opportunity to serve. And then I find out, gosh, I mean I'm getting paid for that? That's just that's just icing on the cake. And she has she said, she said, I get more out of it than the people I serve.
Speaker 3I don't disagree with that, you know, and I have a smile on my face you can't see, but you know, the smile is that a lot of our caregivers say, hey, I want to make a difference and I want to make a little bit of fun money along the way. Yeah. Well, I run payroll every other week, and I'm looking at, you know, the money that our caregivers are making, and I'm like, that's a nice little paycheck for some fun money, right? And so , it's just it's neat to see. And, you know, I think the other piece, Steve, is there are a lot of great home care companies that are in the city, right? Yeah. I just have the opinion that I think we have the best team in Kansas City. So encourage folks to call, give us a shot, learn more about the services that we have. And the other thing that I'm always asking people is if you know of somebody that you think would be a really good caregiver, or if you're interested in being a caregiver, give us a call, go to our website. We would love to talk with you.
Speaker 2Now, what would that commitment look like? I would imagine most people are not in a full-time situation. They would like to have hours that kind of fit their schedule, their availability, maybe?
Speaker 3Yeah, we have caregivers that really they enjoy kind of the 12 hours to say 20 hours a week. Yeah. Yeah. , but we have some caregivers that are working 40 hours a week. They're full-time. Okay, they are. And there's a lot that goes into it, right? It's how many hours do they want to work per week? Where are they located in the city and where are they willing to drive in the city? But it's at least worth having a conversation with us and understanding , if it's a fit. You know, so again, encourage people to give us a call, go to the website, we'd love to talk with you.
Speaker 2Well, it's it would be a great place to work. And like Margie, she's working part-time, just , , some a schedule that works for her. She is, for example. Yep, she is. And some people this this could be a full-time situation, but I'll tell you what, if you want to be with just an amazing home care provider at seniors helping seniors, KC Metro South 913-407-7550. That's 913-407-7550. And JC, you're handling , or providing care for residents pretty much south of I-70. Is that correct? On both the Kansas and Missouri side.
Speaker 3That's a good way to put it. We have partners that are up in the Northland, seniors helping seniors, Kansas City North. Yeah. And so Lauren and Brian, who I've mentioned on this radio show, they do a great job of servicing seniors north of 70.
Speaker 2Can you stick around for a little bit longer after the break? I want to go through some numbers with you. Absolutely. All right, we'll be right back.
SpeakerYou're listening to Senior Care Live on the Senior Care Broadcasting Network. Have a question? Visit seniorcare live.com. Stick around. We'll have more with Steve coming up next.
Speaker 2Welcome back. You're listening to Senior Care Live on the Senior Care Broadcasting Network. For podcasts of the program, visit SeniorCareLive.com or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, so my friend and special guest in the studio today, Mr. JC Pfeister. He's the owner and operator of a wonderful home care provider called Seniors Helping Seniors, KC Metro South. And they bring in, they hire seniors to help seniors. I mean, the secret sauce is in the name, JC. That's right. Right there it is. That's right. Average age of the of the of the caregiver, 62. You can certainly be younger than that. What's your older oldest one? Like 80 or something like that? That's right. Yeah. Right. Right there. And you said that person can run circles around you.
Speaker 3They can run circles around me. So it's not too hard to do now. No. No, they can. They definitely bring it every day, that's for sure.
Speaker 2Yep, that that is amazing. So these and I've said from the second I met you, I said this is a brilliant idea. I don't know why everyone doesn't do this, right? But it's I mean it's fantastic. It makes so much sense. These caregivers are more relatable and they're definitely more reliable. If this is appealing to you, resonating with you, and you're like, wait a minute, wait a minute. We need to make a call. We need to see if this is a good fit for us. I would encourage you to give JC and the and the great team is Seniors Helping Seniors, KC Metro South, a call, 913-407-7550. Or JC, ,, how do they get you online?
Speaker 3How do they catch you there? Just go to seniorshelping seniors.com and , you know they can they can put in their zip code City and , we'll pop up. You'll pop right up. Okay.
Speaker 2All right. And then I wanted to talk about some numbers. Sometimes numbers don't translate over the radio, but I think this is going to work pretty well. , so and it's nothing about you know assisted living communities, long-term care communities, etc. Because guess what? Sometimes that's the right fit. But I want to talk about this because it just dawned on me the other day. I thought I said, we need to do kind of a compare and contrast. So , if you move to assisted living in the Kansas City metro area, you're looking at six thousand to ten thousand dollars a month. And so I just thought, okay, well, let's just pick that middle number and what does that look like? And then what could you do with that much money and stay home? So, first of all, you're moving from your home, which is going to be , highly likely more space than a small apartment, but you'd be you'd be moving into a small apartment and not living in your own comfortable home. The staffing ratio in assisted living is going to be one staff to either six residents. That would be a very good staffing ratio for assisted living. It could be one staff up to maybe 12 residents, and I've seen some about 15 or 16 residents. Okay, so think about that for a second. Guess what your staffing ratio is with seniors helping seniors? One to one. It doesn't get any better than that. You have one caregiver to one person receiving the care. And , one to six to twelve or one to one? Which one's better, JC? That's it's not a trick question. No, it's not a trick question. Not a trick question. We're going to say one to one. Okay, all right, absolutely. And so for that kind of money, okay, and again, it might be the right fit for you. I with my firm senior care consulting. I mean, I help people find assisted living communities and long-term care and other senior communities all the time, right? But if you want to stay home, JC, you could have around 50, maybe 55 hours of home care each and every single week for the average cost of an assisted living community.
Speaker 3Yeah, that's right. Our starting rate in the Kansas City area is $36 an hour, and we are very flexible in terms of our daily minimums, and we have no weekly minimums. And so as people are exploring the idea of having some in-home care, they can start at a few hours a day and grow from there. And so that's what a lot of our that's what a lot of our clients do because it comes back to that relationship piece. And as they build relationships with their caregivers, ,, there's more things, there's more needs that come out. And you know, how many times that we have , clients calling in and saying, I wish I would have known of this sooner. Yep, yep. Right? I wish I would have known a seniors helping seniors sooner than I did. And so that's really heartfelt for us because we really feel like we're making a difference in the community.
Speaker 2Well, and you are for sure. And you know, a lot of places are $40 and above per hour, ,, and they have a minim, , a minim, number of hours that they will come out to see you. So I think you're very , aggressively priced. I think it's a it's a great price , for , for the public, for the c, for the client, and , and then that flexibility on the minim,, because like you said, someone may need a little bit of help now, you know, a couple of days a week, and then as they become more comfortable with their caregiver, and then as their needs expand, then you can grow with them. And and that that's a beautiful thing. And you can provide up to 24 hour per day care, is that correct?
Speaker 3That's right. We have clients that we are providing 24 by 7 care. Now, the thing that I'll say, Steve, is that's not a one-on-one ratio. Yeah. When we get into the 24 by seven care, of course, right? Yeah, we have a care team and it's typically six caregivers with 12-hour shifts, right, that are covering that client.
Speaker 2Yeah. Yeah. But they still come in and there's still one caregiver to one client. It just may not be the same one because so many hours. That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes sense. That makes sense. So if we're looking at moving to long-term care, right, so that's the highest level of care, that's that, ,, that's that highest level of a care model, we're looking at , an average of like $10,000 a month to maybe sixteen thousand dollars a month, depending on if it's a shared room or a private room. So here's your staffing ratio for long-term care. One staff to five residents, and that would be you know pretty decent, pretty typical, but it could be they may have a little more of an independent , , group of residents. It could be up to maybe one to seven. , and so, and again, you're living either in a shared room or you have a private room about the size of a small bedroom, maybe not even as large as your bedroom at home. And you may have to share a bathroom if it's a shared room kind of a situation. And so if you compare that, you could have seniors helping seniors, KC Metro South coming out to your home, in your home, you're not sharing a bathroom, you're not sharing a room, you're living in your beautiful home somewhere between 60 and 100 hours a week, and you could do that. You could remain at home and remain independent at home for years to come at this at this point.
Speaker 3That's right.
Speaker 2That's right. So ,, and then what if you had to move or thought about moving into a continuing care retirement community? Most of these places will have an entrance fee, not all of them do, but most of them somewhere between $200,000 to it could go over $900,000 plus your monthly cost, and you could stay at home, not pay that. You could leave your investment with your financial advisor so they can continue to make you money with your money. Why would you not do that? Give my friend a call, JC Pfeister, with Seniors Helping Seniors, KC Metro South. What's the phone number, JC? 913-407-7550. All right. And then let's not forget to talk about this. You're kind of a movie star now. And the reason I say that you're kind of a movie star is because you're doing this podcast and there's video going and everything. That it's an awesome, it's a fantastic podcast. Congratulations. Hey, thank you.
Speaker 3Aging Well in KC. That's the name of our podcast. You can check it out anywhere that you can watch a podcast, you can listen to a podcast, and it's all about how folks can age better in Kansas City.
Speaker 2All right. And so, what are some of the topics that I know you've done maybe two or three so far, and I know you're going to do , a lot more, what every a couple of weeks or so? How often will this come out?
Speaker 3So we drop one every month. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah. And so we have two that are out there. The first was really an introduction to seniors helping seniors. Yeah. The second was interviewing one of the folks that works for seniors helping seniors. ,, we've talked to somebody about resources that are available. ,, that episode has not come out. It's going to come out this month. Resources that are available in Kansas City, and then we have a long-term care insurance expert that we interviewed that will be , part of our fourth episode.
Speaker 2Good. Good deal. So this is just this is I mean, it's the same type of a mission as senior care live. So to provide information, education, and resources for seniors and their caregivers. , we're all focusing on the Kansas City metro area.
Speaker 3Steve, you were the inspiration of us starting that podcast. Oh, and we appreciate it. No, we do. We have a lot of respect for you in this radio show. We have a lot of respect for what you do for seniors in the Kansas City area.
Speaker 2All right, thank you so much. I appreciate that. So again, what is that podcast called again? What's the title?
Speaker 3Aging Well in K.C.
Speaker 2Aging Well in K.C And you an you get that on most of the your major platforms?
Speaker 3Absolutely.
Speaker 2YouTube, Spotify, Apple. See, YouTube, see, you're so cool. Because you got the video thing going. We do. We do. We need to have video cameras in the radio studio. Darren Wait we need to get some radio some video cameras going in the radio studio here. So all right. So JC Pfeister, Seniors Helping Seniors, KC Metro South, 913-407-7550. JC, thanks for being here today and thanks for all you do.
Speaker 3Thanks for having me back on, and thanks for all you do for seniors as well, Steve.
Speaker 2All right.
Speaker 3We'll have more coming right up.
SpeakerYou're listening to Senior Care Live on the Senior Care Broadcasting Network. To contact Steve or against on his show, visit SeniorCareLive.com. We'll have more coming up.
Speaker 2All right, so let's shift gears here and talk about what to determine before beginning your search for a senior care community. So this would be for someone who is looking to move into a senior care community of any level, of any type of care. And let me just back up. So first of all, first of all, we have a lot of people out there, they're doing the best that they know how to do, okay? And it's just kind of a shotgun approach. Well, let's just go look at some places and figure it out. And this is part of the reason that it's taking people on average 50 to 100 hours to find the right senior care community. So it's just very, very because you're y taking yourself through a pretty significant learning curve. So I'll help you cut that time at least in half with the following. Okay, so what to determine before ever beginning your search? Don't do the shotgun approach. First of all, what level of care do you require? And thing that I look at as far as the level of care, what it what is that level of care? It's a misused term out in the marketplace. I relate it to the licensure. And the licensure for the level of care would dictate what you have to provide and how you must provide that. So we're looking at a long-term care or nursing home level of care. We're looking at assisted living level of care. And then you have a few others. You have a residential care level of care, and then you have home plus level of care. And then there's one more. There are only a few of them around. , you used to see more of them, but now everything is a lot more specialized. But you still have an intermediate care facility, ICF. Basically, it's long-term care, but they do not offer the skill nursing and rehab part covered by Medicare. Everything else is the same with long-term care. So that is your level of care. So you have to figure out well, am I appropriate for the assisted living level? Home plus, long-term care. And that is the first step. Second of all, what type of care do you need? So do you need just general? I I don't get too fancy with stuff. You already know that. I just call it just general care. Just general everyday care within that level of care. Do you need memory care? Memory care is a special type of care for a resident with cognitive impairment. It's no more difficult than that. And oh my goodness, I have run into so many people out in the marketplace, and they say, Well, what level of care? Oh, it's memory care. Well, no, that's not a level of care. Oh, yes, it is, Steve. That's a level of care. It's a higher level of care. Well, show me the licensure for memory care. And you'll find there is no licensure for memory care. So memory care is a special type of care for a person with cognitive impairment. You can find that at the assisted living level of care. You can find that at the long-term care level of care. You can find it at the residential care facility, RCF level of care. And yes, you can find it at the home plus level of care. So that's why this stuff gets complicated real, real fast, like right out of the gate. And that's why so many people count on senior care consulting to handle all of this for them because we understand this. We live this, we breathe it, we've been doing it for a long time. I am a former nursing home administrator and assisted living executive director. I've grown up with all of this. I understand it inside and out, forwards and backwards and sideways and every other way. Okay? So if you need help with that, just give us a call and we'll help you through all of this. And it won't take 50 to 100 hours if we work for you and walk alongside you and help you make one of the biggest decisions of your lifetime, you'll get through this in literally a few hours of your time. That's it. Just a few hours. Okay, I got off track. So another type of care , is skilled nursing and rehab. And then you, of course, you have mental health care, hospice care, and respite care. If your head isn't spinning already, what to determine before ever even thinking about doing your search? Determine what level of care you need and what type of care do you need. And then the big 800-pound , you know, gorilla in the room or elephant or whatever you say, right? How are we going to pay for this stuff? It's very expensive. So if you hear the term private pay, that means you're using your own resources to pay for your care. And then you can have Medicare. What is it? What is that? What does it pay for? Medicaid. I've talked about all this n,erous times on the program. If you want to go back and just search out some of that through our previous podcast, you can find a lot about that. ,, you may have a long-term care insurance policy. You may be the a veteran requiring care or the surviving spouse of a qualifying veteran and qualify for the VA aid and attendance program. It's a benefits program, it's fantastic. So we need to know the level of care, the type of care, and the payment method. And then, of course, you have location parameters. We all want to be close. Okay, it would be fantastic if it's you know a block down the street. Usually it just doesn't work out quite that conveniently. Okay, so the question is how far out can we look to find the best place and the best fit? How far are you willing to drive to find the best fit? Well, Steve, I'm I you know, we live in so just for example, we live in Overland Park. So, you know, anywhere in Johnson County is fine. ,, I don't really want to drive to you know, Topeka, Kansas, or you know, someplace really far away. Do you think we could find something that's quality in the Johnson County area within a reasonable driving distance of where we live? Sure. Yeah, ,, we I think we can do that, right? So we have location parameters and then any personal preferences and needs. So sometimes, like had , I've had some clients actually recently, they're vegan. And so, you know, a long time, maybe about 10 years ago, that was a lot more difficult to find that, maybe gluten-free, so like a specialized diet, okay? But today, I I think , the choices and the , availability of a lot of products make it , a lot easier to provide that and meet someone with special needs in the dietary area. And so ,, and there are a lot of other examples of , personal preferences and needs. So , so the bottom line is before you ever even think about going out and conducting your search for senior care community, you need to know what level of care is appropriate, what type of care is needed, how are you going to pay for all of this, what are your location parameters, and are there any personal preferences and needs? I've had a lot of clients say mother's played piano for the last six, seven decades. It's part of her DNA at this point. It would be fantastic if they had a piano available for mother to play. Okay, so and I'm a musician, so in my opinion, that's not a like to have, that's a gotta have. Okay, so whatever it is, you need you need to find a place that can check all the boxes. If all of that sounds overwhelming, that is because it absolutely is. I would invite you to reach out to my firm, Senior Care Consulting. We can help you right through this, we can walk through this with you in a very minimal amount of time and help you find the right fit in the very best place available, meeting all of your unique needs and meeting your situation. 913-945-2800, 913-945-2800, or online at SeniorCareConsulting.com. I'm Steve Kuker and I wish you grace and peace. May God bless you and your family on this day and always. Join me next week, right here on Senior Care Live.
Speaker 1Speaker 2
