The Value of Care Management with Jamie Friedlander

Jaimee Friedlander is a dedicated professional who found her passion for working with seniors during her graduate studies in social work. She is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) and Certified Case Manager (CCM). Growing up with a close relationship with her grandparents and witnessing the challenges of the sandwich generation, Jamie knew she wanted to make a difference in the lives of seniors.

In this episode of ElderCare Insights, host Lee Berkowitz interviews Jamie Friedlander, the owner of Guiding Care, a geriatric care management company. Jamie shares her journey into the geriatric care management field, her passion for helping seniors, and the valuable services her company provides to ensure the safety, health, and independence of elderly individuals.

During the interview, Jamie explains the role of a care manager in assessing the needs of their clients, coordinating services, overseeing care for complex situations, and serving as an advocate for families. She emphasizes the importance of effective communication and proactive planning in managing the affairs of elderly individuals, especially during hospitalization and discharge planning.

Listeners gain insight into the flexible and personalized approach of Guiding Care, the benefits of care management for families, and the significance of reunifying families by facilitating relocation to be closer to loved ones.

Takeaways

1. Care managers assess needs and coordinate services.
2. Communication and planning are critical for elderly safety.
3. Care services help the elderly relocate near family.

Connect with Jaimee Friedlander
Website: www.guidingcarefl.com

Timestamps
03:00 Care management team provides services for elderly.
04:00 Hiring a care manager can help coordinate care, advocate, and provide peace of mind.
07:51 Managing bills for clients important for independence.
11:57 One main contact for families in Guiding Care.
13:53 Helping families connect, move, and reunite.
17:12 Matching caregivers based on location, needs, and compatibility.
22:49 Advocate for loved ones in busy hospitals.

Book a call with Lee Berkowitz: www.welcomebackhomecare.com

Transcript

0:00

The family has has a doctor, a primary care doctor in place, and you can recommend others if you feel that that's that's appropriate. Yeah. So there's so many different things that are impacting someone's life. Different providers that they're working with their home environment, their nutrition, their medical care, their emotional care. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Elder Care Insights Podcast by Welcome Back Home Care. So today we have a very special guest, Jamie Friedlander, who's the owner of Guiding Care Concierge Care Geriatric Care Management Company. So welcome to the podcast Jamie. Lee, Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. Thank you. And it's an honor to have you on the podcast. I know you're super busy, so thank you so much for for, you know, finding the time to come and speak with us because the general public, everybody should know a little bit about geriatric care management and about what you do. So before we get into that, something we have in common, we both went to terrible high school. Yes. So we're from the same place in Coral Springs. So that's something I learned today. And just tell us a little bit, how did you get into geriatric care management? What made you want to get into this this field? Sure. So I decided that I wanted to work with seniors. I fell in love working with seniors when I was in graduate school for my master's degree in social work. I had a very close relationship with my grandparents. I saw the challenges that my parents were having as a sandwich generation, dealing with different caregiving issues from afar. And I did an internship in graduate school at the FSU Memory Wellness Center, which is a memory disorder clinic, and I just fell in love with working with this population. And I worked at the clinic for several years after I graduated, and then I had the opportunity to get into care management. A position opened up at Jewish Family Services, and that's how I really got introduced to the care management field. And since then I've been really just finding my niche and realizing that this is a space that is has a great need in this community and yes, 100%. And so Jewish Family Services, great organization. So you've got a lot of experience working at the Jewish Family Services and then you spun off and you started your own organization and the name of your organization, Guiding Care, Guiding Care. And we worked together. So I understand intimately a little bit about your organization and some of the people that we work together with. So this is a concierge type of care management company. So tell us a little bit about what you do and what makes your company a little bit different than some others. Sure. So care management is it's a broad service. Everyone on my team is either social worker or nurse. We all have training in working with elderly or adults with disabilities and understand that, you know, it takes sometimes a village to take care of our loved ones. And so most of the clients that we work with, we help by assessing their situation, identifying what needs might be important for them to be able to have a healthy, independent life at home or to avert any crises or, you know, to improve their quality of life. We help set up those services and then follow them on an ongoing basis. And a lot of the families that we work with, we really help with managing, overseeing care for complicated situation. So let's say you're an adult child and you're living out of town, let's say New York or California. Your mom or dad is down here in South Florida. They might have dementia, they might have cardiac issues, they may be in the hospital or in and out of the hospital. And it's really hard to get a handle on what's going on when you're so far away and when you come down. Navigating the health care system can feel very stressful and overwhelming, and oftentimes things don't always make sense. So, you know, hiring a care manager can really help by coordinating services, being an advocate for your loved one, helping to give you peace of mind, knowing that there's someone local that's an expert that you can call on to set up and supervise the care. And we'll go in there and do a variety of services, whether it's referring to a home care company like Welcome Back Home and saying, We think that you could really use a caregiver in your home. And this is the schedule and this is the type of person that you need. And that's how you and I have gotten to be colleagues and having a lot of mutual clients. Yes. Or we might say, you know, we might need to get a new doctor or maybe the medications need to be organized or this is a safety issue. Yeah. What can we do to keep your loved ones safe, healthy and independent and have the best quality of life? So so you and your company have many different resources to to choose from, you know, many different for instance, neurologists, I'm assuming, or different doctors that sometimes the family has has a doctor or a primary care doctor in place, and you can recommend others if you feel that that's that's appropriate. Yes. So there's so many different things that are impacting someone's life, different providers that they're working with their home environment, their nutrition, their medical care, their emotional care. So we're kind of like the center of the wheel and all these spokes are coming out that are the different aspects of the services that are needed. And we can be the person to kind of make sure everything's going smoothly and connecting all the dots. Yeah, Yeah. And so you mentioned a little bit about crisis. So do the clients sign up with you before the crisis, during the crisis, after the crisis. And so if someone has a crisis and goes into the hospital, will you be there with them or one of your care managers? Yeah. So ideally, you know, it'd be great for most families to be able to set up some support and services before there's a crisis avert a crisis. But a lot of times we do get those calls when someone is in the midst of something. My family members in the hospital, I don't know what to do. They're at home and they're refusing care and they need the help so we can come in in a crisis, help to make recommendations and come up with a plan, a short term plan to and once everything is more stable, come up with a long term plan. But a lot of times we're fortunate enough to get involved with families early on and we can come up with resources and services and plans for them so that they can avoid some of these crises that might happen. You know, like simple things like, you know, have you met with an attorney and had your legal affairs put in order before a crisis that can really be very important. Have you done Medicaid planning? You know, have you identified, you know, who is, you know, going to help you if you can't manage your financial affairs anymore, you know, so we can do those advance care planning, help them strategize. But if we're in the middle of a crisis, we can help them. We do go to the hospital, we do go to the home. 24 seven. If there's an issue where we're there. Wow. That's that's terrific. So you mentioned a little bit about money management, crisis management. So let's touch on the money management a little bit. Seniors, they're getting older, Their faculties aren't the way they once were. Maybe they're declining a little bit. They don't maybe they forgot to pay their credit card bill last month. Like this can add up so much with interest fees and late penalty penalties and payments. So go a little bit and talk about so So how do you manage the money and what type of deal do you set budgets for for these folks? And how does that work? Sure. You know, being able to manage your own bills is something that many of our clients find as an important part that they want to continue to be involved in. It's something that they identify as making them still feel independent. And so, you know, but when someone start to have cognitive changes, they become vulnerable to making mistakes or having being taken advantage of. So a lot of times we can go in and we'll say, look, well, why don't we plan when we come once a week, we can go through your mail and over time we can help oversee and organize and simplify things for them and communicate to the family if we notice any red flags or issues coming up. The other thing, too, is we can help them access resources. They might be a veteran and not be aware that they're eligible for certain benefits or they might have a long term care insurance policy not know how to access it. Yeah, so, you know, we can help them in terms of safely managing their affairs and also pointing them to the right resources if they want a bookkeeper, if they want an accountant, you know, helping them get set up with trusted people that can assist them and keep their families involved. Yeah. So folks, everybody out here listening and watching. Just think about the value here with care management. You know what? How much does a plane ticket cost? Right? How much does it cost for these late penalties and interest rates on this credit card bill? And what's the value of knowing that you have someone who's protecting your your loved one, setting you up with great resources, making sure that they have a great caregiver, that their house is in order, that everything is nice and clean the way that they they should be living. So I see so much value in care management and how you're overall protecting these people and helping the families. We spoke about how they start off being anxious and maybe we're walking towards that step to peace of mind knowing that someone has your back at all times. Yeah, and a lot of times I find, you know, older adults, they don't want to they're afraid of telling their children or their close family members when they're struggling. They might not realize it or they might be they don't want to burden their family or they maybe are worried about losing control of their situation. And sometimes having a third party come in can help them feel like they're still involved and that they have someone safe that they can talk to that can come up with solutions that isn't as close as a family member, where sometimes emotions run high and disagreements happen. So we can help to mediate a lot of challenges that come up and come up with solutions in a way that's comfortable for everybody. Yeah, yeah, that's so great. And so about the services, do your clients have any sort of a long term commitment? Is there a minimum amount of hours per month? How does that work? Well, what I love about my company Guiding Care is we're flexible, so we might have someone that just wants a one time consultation, pick my brain, get all the resources. Fine. We might have some families where we're involved in every aspect of their care for an ongoing basis for years and years. And then there's all those families that fall in between. So I don't necessarily require families to sign up for a minimum amount of time. It's what's needed. And sometimes we work with a family intensely. They get through a rough patch and everything's stable and then we don't need to be involved as much. We might keep in touch by phone, call periodically, and then if there's a new need that comes up, they know they can reach out to us. So it's a very flexible service. That's great, that's great. So I'm sure you work with other agencies, not just Welcome back Home Care. Tell us a little bit about the communication with your care care managers and how they communicate. So we know that we communicate. Our coordinator, Claudia, who's fantastic, she has a direct line of communication with the care managers. So we work with Hope, we work with Gail. Some of the care managers at Guiding Care, and it is a very direct line of communication. So how does Guiding Care communicate with home care agencies or nurse registries like Welcome back. Sure. So every family is going to be that works with Guiding Care is assigned to a primary care manager and we work as a team. We cover each other. But you're really going to have one point of contact. You'll have that person, cell phone number, their email address, and that's the main person that be working with and that's the main person that's also coordinating the services for that family. So let's say Gail, for example, is the care manager working with your family then? She's the one that's going to be the main contact coordinating the services. Now, some families prefer to still be involved in being the main contact and having the calls go directly to them, and that's fine. We're flexible. But if a family wants us to really be the quarterback of the team and setting everything up, then we'll be the ones on the call dealing with all the issues and making all the last minute changes and say, Look, you know, so-and-so is needing X, Y, and Z or they're happy with this or you know, give some feedback because a lot of clients have a hard time communicating with providers they don't know or they're not comfortable knowing what to say, or they may not know what information is needed. So when communicating with Welcome Back Home, for example, we can say we have this person and we know what information you need to be able to best match the appropriate caregiver. Yeah. And we relay that information. Our coordinator relays that directly to the caregiver. We make sure she understands exactly what the family wants and needs. And so that's that's how we work, where it's it's all about communication. And we have to listen about and for the needs of the families, you know, it's all about the need. So tell us what this is kind of a curveball question. Okay. So so brace yourself. What was the best day ever from the time you started Guiding Care? The best day at Guiding Care? that's a hard question. It's it's hard. You know, sometimes we work with families locally, but one of the the gifts that we also get to do is help bring families closer together. So sometimes we'll be working with someone locally here and they want to be able to move to be closer to their family in a different state or even in a different country. And we can help in those situations, too. And sometimes, you know, reuniting a family, helping to find, connect them to resources, help them, you know, get all their care needs here, settled, wrapped up so that way we can travel with them, bring them to Connecticut or California or Italy or wherever, and, you know, set them up in an appropriate setting so that they can be close with their family is really rewarding. And we've we've had the opportunity to do that a few times. And it's really nice when we can say, look, we can take care of your mom or dad here, but we can also help bring them to be closer to you. That is that is so sweet. And sometimes families just don't know how to do it. How do I get my 90 year old father over here? Where do I start? You know, so being able to say, look, these are the steps, this is what we can do, we can help you Each step of the way is really rewarding. It's hard to say a particular day. That's really the best. That's that sounds great. So bringing the families together is something that you really connect with. And so doing these things that seem impossible for the families, you work the magic and make sure that you can accommodate, that. You can basically do anything, bring a family, for instance, to Italy or out of the country. They may need that. That could be a very difficult process, right? You need transportation. I'll give a shout out to always on time transportation. And my brother Lloyd owns the business and they're fabulous. They've worked with a lot of our clients and accommodated some unique situations. Yeah, Lloyd is terrific. I see how hard he works, so I'm just amazed and very proud of my brother Lloyd because, you know, he helped so many families as well, you know, working with Guiding Care. And when they have to get to an appointment, super important that they get there, they're on time and they get to that assessment or that visit with the doctor. And so we can continue this process and take steps forward. So connecting getting folks to their appointments, getting them to the airport, it could require all sorts of things that, you know, I'm not you know, there could be a medical jet company or something that you may work with or, you know, someone that can accommodate folks in wheelchairs. So that that's just amazing. That sounds like a great day and a great way to connect families together. So how many caregivers are how many care managers are on your team? You're growing business. You're doing terrific. We're working together. We're both growing together. So tell us a little bit about your team. Yeah. So I have a right now there's five of us. Wow, it's myself. And then I have and we all have our own unique strengths, you know? So I have Gayle and Rhoda, who are both. Nurse. Yeah, Yeah. Gail Isaacs. Amazing folks like, Reach out to Guiding Care. And as for Gail, as for Jamie, as for Rhoda, as for, like, they're all amazing. We've worked with them all and very, very intuitive people. They're very resourceful and the communication, they care as well. We're paired with people who care. Yeah. So I try and identify based on where someone lives and what their needs are, you know, which of who on my team is really going to be the best fit for that family friend, you know, because we all have different personalities and we all have different backgrounds and you know, not everyone is the best fit for each family. So I try and really like you match caregivers. I try and match care manager to be the best fit for that family and their needs based on their communication style and their, you know. But the thing that connects us all is we're all really devoted. We all love what we do, and we all treat our clients as if they're our own family. Yes, I can attest to that 100%, because we work directly and I understand the devotion and how much we care. And we won't stop until the family is satisfied, happy with the services and understands the real value. So that's so great. And yeah, so it's very nice to be working with you. And welcome back Home Care. It's just been such a pleasure and an honor. So where do we reach you? How do we find you? You know, for the folks listening, do you have a website? Yes. So you can find me at WW W dot Guiding Care, Philly.com Guiding Care, Fool.com for Florida FL and then my numbers 95459260329545926032. And that number comes directly to me and I like to be accessible to all of our families and make sure that everyone's getting their needs met. Yeah, So again, we're anticipating the needs. The best thing is to be proactive and to plan for the future. So go ahead and call Guiding care. So before we go, let's let's talk a little bit about the discharge process. So we have a client who has been admitted to the hospital. Maybe there's a fall and they need to take the next steps to progression, you know, to go ahead and get back home. Typically, what are the steps and what do you tell families when someone enters the hospital and they've been admitted? What what typically happens next? Well, if we can meet the client at the hospital, that's really ideal. We can oftentimes there's a lot of miscommunication even within the hospital. Medications or contact information diagnoses. You know, everyone's busy at the hospital and multitasking. And it's very easy to overlook something or to make something up. So us being there to advocate is really important, but mostly with the discharge planning, we want to make sure that there's a safe plan in place and that families know their options. They might not be ready to go home, but they may not know that insurance will cover for a short term rehab stay somewhere they need mental health treatment, and we can help them to access these services. And if they want to go home and making sure that home is safe, do they have a caregiver if they need help with their activities of daily living, You know, can they take out their own garbage, can they make their own meal? Can they shower themselves safely? Is the safe is the home safe? We can go in and make sure that the home is safe, making sure that their medications are ordered and manage their doctor's appointments are scheduled. A lot of times we go with clients to doctors because we can help them communicate what's been going on and then communicate with all the other providers involved. Because a lot of times that's a step that's missing. Doctor A doesn't communicate to Dr. B and they might be doing something that's contra indicative and the families also aren't aware of what's going on and the person that's there may have trouble hearing or remembering or seeing, and they're missing a lot of information. Wow. So going with the clients of those appointments, helping, making sure all the recommended plans are followed through and putting together a plan and knowing what the resources are. Maybe they need an adult day program. Maybe there's a senior center or transportation services that they have access that they need access to. Yeah, Yeah. So also like when when someone gets goes into the hospital, they're not planning for this. This is an emergency. Something happens, you know, anything could, you know, the oven could be left on, you know, there could be, you know, the laundry is still in the in the washing machine. It could be a mess all around the house. And they had the cleaning lady come was planning to come the next day. But the house is a complete mess. So you can even we've had situations where we set that up, you know someone falls and sometimes there might be a mess in the home and we say, okay, let's make sure that's cleaned up before you get home. Let's make sure your mail is being collected and and being checked. Yeah. If you have an animal, you know, let's say, who can, you know, helping find emergency respite for your pet. Those are all things that are important to our families that we work with and we make sure are addressed. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I'm sure sometimes you've worked with people who are hoarders, which is a very difficult situation. So that might take a little bit of time to, to reorganize, to make sure there's no emergency things to think about. And safety is always most important. It's paramount. So we want to also keep the caregivers safe and keep the clients safe. So sometimes we've had to call Stanley Steemer, you know, and just get a real deep clean in there and create the better environment for the caregiver, for the client. So wow. So for the folks listening, I mean, and if you've had your mother or your father or a loved one in the hospital, I'm sure that you would say right now, Wow, I really wish I had Jamie's information before. And so they could advocate for us. I mean, that's a key word advocate, because the hospital discharge planners are super busy. The patient care advocates in the hospital, super busy. Doctors are super busy. But that's exactly what you do, is you're advocating for the clients in that time of need in the emergency situation when mostly the children aren't here to do it. You know, we love them like, like we're their kids, you know, And so that that's that's super important. And love to hear that because, you know, this is what we need. We need more advocacy. And people like Jamie and, you know, your team at Guiding Care. So please go to her website. We'll post it on the video and yeah, so thank you, Jamie. I think we touched on a lot of great things. It's an honor and pleasure to have you here on the Elder Care Insights podcast. And yeah, 100%. It's really great to be working with you and we look forward to growing together and all the folks out there. Please give Jamie a call and her company, Guiding Care. I'm Lee Berkowitz with Welcome Back Homecare. This is the elder Care Insights podcast and it was a pleasure having you. Thank you so much, everybody. Have a great day and thanks for listening and thanks for viewing.