The Fourth Quarter Podcast
Living the last quarter of your life with intention around health, fitness, nutrition and joy! Learning from others and tuning in to hear live one on one coaching that educates, inspires and motivates you to move!
The Fourth Quarter Podcast
EP017: The Silver Tsunami is Here! How to Navigate Senior Care Before Crisis
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One fall can turn “We’re fine at home” into “We need a plan by Friday.” That gap between calm and chaos is where most families get hurt financially, emotionally, and logistically, especially when they’re trying to help a parent or spouse navigate aging, memory loss, or declining mobility.
We sit down with Gus Fernandez, vice president and co-owner of Senior Helpers of San Diego County and co-owner and administrator of La Jolla Senior Care Homes, to get practical about senior care. Gus explains what aging in place really means, what home care can cover (personal care, comfort care, companionship, transportation), and why the caregiver shortage is growing as the baby boomer “silver tsunami” pushes demand higher. We also talk about the hard truth that the need for care often arrives suddenly after an accident, and why doing your homework early is one of the most loving things you can do for your family.
From there, we lay out the common path of care options: home caregiving, assisted living communities, memory care for Alzheimer’s and dementia, and smaller residential care homes for people who need closer supervision. We get into the money side too: long-term care insurance and how benefits often depend on activities of daily living (ADLs), plus VA programs and other benefits that can reduce out-of-pocket costs if you know where to look.
If you’re in your fourth quarter of life, helping aging parents, or simply trying to plan ahead, subscribe, share this with someone who needs it, and leave us a review so more families can find this guidance.
Reach Gus Fernandez @ gus@lajollaseniorcarehomes.com
Welcome And Fourth Quarter Mindset
SPEAKER_01Wake up, wake up, and listen up. Welcome to the fourth quarter podcast with your hosts Doug Talmudge and Ted Ania. Tune in as we dive into living your best life in the fourth quarter of your life. Hear from health and lifestyle experts, inspirational stories, learn simple steps to keep you motivated or to help get you started. Finally, join us as we coach others live on air who want to begin a healthy lifestyle or just might be stuck and need a breakthrough. Remember, it's never too late to decide to be great. Momentum keeps you motivated, so take a deep breath. Lean in and let's go.
SPEAKER_02Hey, welcome back to the fourth quarter with Doug and Ted. I am excited again. You know what, Ted? It seems like every week I'm just excited because we have a new guest, we have new topics, and we're just moving and grooving with this podcast thing, man. I'm I'm I'm I'm proud of us, Ted. I'm really proud of us. Must be the person booking all the guests that's doing a good job. It must be, it must be, but I doubt it. Anyways, no, we'll keep moving forward. I'm just kidding. No, you're doing actually you're doing an excellent job at getting them guests. And I like putting a little pressure on you, Ted, because you get a little worried and anxious and like who's next? Who's next? But it puts you in search mode, and somehow, someway, you run into guests and you find them and you get them on the show. So great job, brother. Great job. Hey, last week's episode, I was uh in Arizona with my brothers from another mother's while they were running a 125-mile endurance run. And so I didn't really get much time to kind of reflect on the episode. I did hear bits and pieces, got some feedback on it. And you know, now that I'm back in town, I'm sure I'll get more feedback. But man, I thought about Ryan and some of the things he does and and how he recovers. And I'm thinking, dang, I need to do some of his protocol this week because even though I didn't run that uh 125 miles with the guys, I was a crew guy, I feel beat up. I just feel beat up, you know, running around and doing all that stuff. But it's a great episode. If you haven't listened to it, it's episode 16 connecting generations through movement and nature. Go check it out. It's a great listen.
SPEAKER_00I was at his match, his wrestling match on Saturday night, and he got beat up. Did he? He went, he went into a wall, chair over the back, uh, through a table, body slammed through a table.
SPEAKER_02So this is like the legit thing.
SPEAKER_00Like you see on TV, it's like slam, bam, thank you, ma'am, kind of stuff, right? Those cuts and bruises were not were not fake. Wow, he did he did prevail in the end and is the new stars of wrestling heavyweight champion.
SPEAKER_02Congratulations, Ryan. I hope you're listening, man. Big shout out to you.
SPEAKER_00Hopefully, hopefully, we can get some video up online of his his match and and connect it to the episode last week. There's there's some good stuff. It was it was fun. That's cool.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, make let's make that happen. You're you're becoming the new uh social media real guy. You know how to make them reels now. So uh I'll count on you to make that happen.
Recovery And Bodywork Lessons
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, uh the other thing that was was fun about the match was because it was local, a lot of the people that Ryan sees for his recovery were there. They had booths set up. It was fun talking to them. He goes to a chiropractor, and I spoke with them, and it was really interesting because we had real good feedback on our episode with the chiropractors that I see. These chiropractors have a whole different technique and how they do it. There are a lot of deep tissue massage and really getting in there. And they actually did some treatments on me while I was there Saturday night, but it would be fun to have them in because it's taking care of your body, but in a different way than Dr. D's and Dr. Locks when they were on that, how they they do it in their practice. So it was it was very interesting to see the contrast. So you had them working on you? They were there, they would uh show you some things. Yeah, they they had a new type of technique, uh, some sort of uh infrared gun or something that they were working deep down, and man, it hurt. So I'm assuming it did some good. Oh, very nice.
SPEAKER_02So you were cheating on Dr. D's and Dr. Locks, huh? I hope they're not listening to this episode. No, I'm just kidding.
SPEAKER_00You know, and uh they also had there, he goes and gets stretched out, I think a couple of times a week, and those two women that that own that business were there, and they were doing they were stretching people out just to kind of let them know how it feels. And man, that that hurt in a good way, but realize how tight I am, and they're actually going to come out. They do a lot of they said the majority of their clients are 60 and above. So I thought that would be interesting to have them on and just kind of explain what they do and the movements and everything because I do very little stretching and it shows, so yeah.
Endurance Running In Midlife
SPEAKER_02I think that's uh you're you're with every most people in the world. We all know that stretching is absolutely beneficial for us, but many of us were done with the workout and we don't stretch. Yeah, we just go on to the next thing.
SPEAKER_00This week's guest, Gus Fernandez, kind of stepped in. We we had scheduled Kevin Hall, who is an expert on uh he was going to speak to peptides and supplements, and he had a family emergency come up yesterday morning, so wasn't able to join us. So Gus stepped in a week or two early, which is is great. We're looking forward to that. Kevin's going to come on, I think, in two weeks. He'll be on and we'll get into the whole peptide discussion. So that should be interesting.
SPEAKER_02Awesome.
SPEAKER_00You mentioned being in Arizona for that run. Yes, and wanted to give a shout out for those of you that don't know. Doug has another podcast called the Peach Podcast, and his co-host Daryl, and another one of the Peach team, I guess, is they ran the Sedona 125. They ran 125 miles over 67 hours, 67 and a half hours, something like that. Crazy. That's crazy. And uh they're they're going to get into that on their next episode and discuss that. So keep an eye out for for that Peach Podcast. That'll be be fun to hear what pushes somebody to do something crazy like that.
SPEAKER_02Well, you know, Ted, I'm gonna tell you that and I kind of mentioned this to you yesterday when we were catching up, that I was amazed at how many people in their fourth quarter were out there doing this crazy challenge. And you know, because you're not sprinting the whole time, it's it's all about strategy and technique and having a crew and support. And, you know, if you do it right, someone like someone like yourself, which I told you yesterday, I said, Ted, I I can see you doing this because you walk 10 to 15 to 20,000 steps a day. So you have that the fit every day, and you've been doing it for I'm not even gonna say how many days, we'll save that for our next episode. But it's quite a number of days you've been doing it consistently. So, you know, there were several moments where I was thinking, man, Ted needs to be out here because it it has the elements that are gonna push you beyond what you're comfortable with, and but you have the base to ensure you get it done. Will it be pleasant? Of course not. Can you do it? Of course you can. And so that's something that I want to challenge you or encourage you to contemplate and think of. And maybe it doesn't have to be 125 miles, but you know, again, I want to uh join you and celebrate and give a shout out to Daryl and Eric for getting it done. My cousin Dave, who was a pacer for uh a marathon's worth 26 and a half miles or something like that. He was out there in the evening pacing with them in the early morning, and then uh, and a shout out to me for crewing, showing up and just loving on those boys when they needed that love and support, man. It was it was an absolute incredible experience. And Ted, I'm telling you, I would love to be a part of a team where you and your family are out there doing this because it's it's it's a cool family affair when you put it together the right way.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. We'll talk about that. Okay, I don't know you're gonna convince me of that one. All good.
SPEAKER_02So uh tell us about uh tell us about Gus and uh and let's get him rolling.
Gus’ Path Into Senior Care
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We grew up together in Antioch, went went all through school together, went to San Diego State together, we're roommates in the dorms there. He is in the senior care field. Okay, he's the vice president and co-owner of the senior helpers of San Diego County, and co-owner and administrator of the La Jolla Senior Care Homes. We've dealt with it with parents, but now you know we're looking at it, we're getting to that point right now that you know we've got to start considering different different options for ourselves. So, Gus, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_03Thank you very much. Glad to be here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Gus, it's very, very good to have you. Although I I'm I'm kind of tempted to flip the show on its head real quick since Gus knows you so deeply. I'm like, let's let's make this episode about getting dirt on Ted.
SPEAKER_03There's plenty of it. He's paid me off though, so so my lips are sealed.
SPEAKER_00All right, we'll stick to the script then. Unfortunately, I've got as much on him as he has on me.
SPEAKER_02It's not coming out. All right, we'll stick to the script. So, Ted, you have uh why don't you give us an outline or the first question and we'll get going?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, just why don't you just give us some background on you know what you're I know you were a pharmacist at one point. Why don't you give us some background on that and then how you got into the senior care segment?
SPEAKER_03Yes, yes. Well, uh, as you mentioned, in terms of a even before then, in terms of a formal education, I got my uh degree in pharmacy from the University of Pacific of the Pacific in Stockton. And for the first, I'd say, three to four years worked as a licensed pharmacist. And over that period of time, I developed an interest into going into sales. So after working for about four years in pharmacy, I spent the next few decades of my life in the pharmaceutical industry working for a wide variety of companies. That included large Fortune 500 companies, all the way down to little startup biotech companies. And that was a very fulfilling career. With that said, I would say probably in the 2027, 2019 timeframe, I was speaking with my wife Jennifer, who had just purchased a senior care franchise operation here in San Diego. And we started talking about things and said, you know, why don't we team up and kind of phase into senior care? There's a high demand for it. People are getting older and older, and we can talk about that a little later. But I bet this is something that we can really, you know, make a go at as, you know, we progress in our careers. So we started working with senior helpers, which is a home care franchise operation, starting in that 2017 timeframe. And then a couple of years after that, we started thinking, well, how can we augment this? Right now we have this wonderful business. We have this group of caregivers that goes into people's homes and takes care of people. What else can we do to complement that? And that's when we started looking into the senior care homes. This goes by many monikers, such as residential care facilities for the elderly, also commonly known as boarding care homes. But after a lot of research in 2019, uh we purchased a couple of boarding care homes in the La Jolla area. So now what we have, as you mentioned, we have two different sectors in senior care. One, we have senior helpers, where we have a team of about 50 caregivers that will go into your home and take care of you in a concierge type of way. And then we have uh two boarding care homes where people come live 24-7 and we care for them in that environment.
SPEAKER_00It's just amazing that there are people around that have the ability to care for people like that, you know, whether it's senior care or nurses in hospitals. I just I don't have that gene in me. And I I thank God there are people like that because you know, my mom was in uh an assisted living facility, and you know, it was it was comforting knowing that she was well taken care of all the time.
The Silver Tsunami And Aging In Place
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's it's very fulfilling, and you know, to give credit where credit is due, you know, my wife Jennifer started off doing this now many years ago, even before we we met. You know, she had been doing some private duty as a caregiver for a neighbor lady. Then she worked for a local hospice organization where she cared for the terminally ill and had looked forward to doing this throughout her career. And around the 2017-2016 time frame, finally committed to doing it. And then after seeing her working in it and talking about it, I joined her in 2019. So again, a lot of work, high demand out there for sure, and it's very fulfilling.
SPEAKER_02Speaking of high demand, Gus, is is that something you is it growing more at a rapid rate right now? Because you know, we're all we're all getting older, and what what are you seeing out there? What's the trend?
SPEAKER_03Yes, yes, there's there's a lot of data out there right now, and we go to a number of conferences where they talk about this, but a lot of it is currently driven by the baby boom population and even those that came before the boomers. But the focus is on the boomers, that they they refer to it, the people in the business kind of refer to it as the silver tsunami, you know, the big wave of people that are coming of age to where they need help. To throw some numbers on this, if you look at the baby boom sector, which goes from like 1945 to 1964, that comprises around 76 million people, of which around 65 million are still living.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_03So you have a sector of people ranging from 62 to 81 years old that either are getting care or will need care. And that doesn't even count the people who came before us or before that age bracket. So there are a lot of people out there that are progressing through their years, living a lot longer, and that will eventually need care. And that's where we come in.
SPEAKER_02Is there what's the what's the biggest challenge? I mean, when you say silver tsunami, that's just that's a huge magnitude of people. And I have to assume maybe we're not equipped as a society to handle everybody. So what what are the biggest challenges people face or you guys deal with?
SPEAKER_03Well, the the challenges, I guess the answer is twofold. Uh, the challenges that people face on the the client side is that everybody wants to be able to age in place as they become older.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_03And when we say become older, it's a lot different than you know, going back 50 years ago where people were living to be maybe 70 or 75 years old. Uh right now, you know, we have clients that are well into their 90s, you know. So there's people out there that need a lot of help in their home if they want to age in place in a safe manner. And so with the growing number of people that want to age in place, there is a high demand on the availability of caregivers out there. And it starts with the family. If you go back a generation ago, it was very common for when mom or dad got to a the age where they needed help, the family was living in the general area and would take turn, you know, take turns caring for them. You know, that was back, say, in the mid-60s, when the average family was composed of maybe three or four children. They lived in the same area, and they were the family caregivers. That's not the case anymore. People are having fewer children. The the child, the adult children don't always stay in the immediate proximity of their parents. And so you have this big need placed on the outside third-party caregiver to come into the home and take care of them. The thing is, is that there aren't that many of them out there. I don't have exact numbers in hand, but there are a lot more people in need than there are as registered caregivers that are available to take care of them. So that's where the stressors come in in terms of being able to receive care and provide care.
SPEAKER_02I like the the word you use, age in place. Does that mean they're staying in their home and you're and you're sending in caregivers to do just like maybe laundry or dishes or feed or something like that?
SPEAKER_03Is that yes, that that's really the number one goal that people have is they want to stay home.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_03You know, they want to live with their familiar belongings. You know, a lot of people have been in their houses for 50 or 60 years. They don't necessarily want to have to move out to a senior living community. And so so basically, the whole concept is to age in place safely. And that's where home caregiving comes into place. And when we do implement a care plan, it's usually either called personal care or comfort care. Personal care is a big list of items such as helping them get up in the morning, dressing them, bathing, cooking, feeding, lighthouse keeping, taking out the garbage, et cetera, et cetera. It also involves things that we do all the time, taking them to doctor visits, taking them grocery shopping, et cetera. There's also basically companion services where you might come in and just have a discussion, play a game, take someone to the ballpark, things of that nature. So everybody has a different need, but the whole idea is to one, keep them comfortable and keep them safe.
SPEAKER_02Nice. You know, if uh if you were speaking to someone who, let's say they're in their fourth quarter, they're they're reasonably healthy, they can drive themselves and wash their own dishes and laundry, but they're moving closer to that age where they may be considering aging in place. What are what would you consider? And this is we can tie this into the fourth quarter podcast perfectly, is what are some fundamental things you would encourage people to take care of? Like their physical health, mental, like what what are fundamental things you would encourage someone to do?
SPEAKER_03Well, well, certainly uh staying on top of your physical and and mental health as good as you can, right? You know, and staying in shape, trying to stay as alert as you can, being active, eating healthy, et cetera. Beyond that, it comes down to pre-planning. And and the reason I say that is that the need for care often comes up out of the blue, usually subsequent to an accident. For example, it's very common for us to get a phone call saying, Yes, my father is living at home, he tripped and fell, he's had a couple of falling episodes, but now he broke his hip. He's in a skilled nursing facility, and we don't know what to do. He wants to come home, but we don't have anyone to care for him. Or we might have to place him into a community, which is also another service that we do. So you get these times of panic, right? And the thing that we I present to everybody is that, you know, I'm here to help you navigate this process, whether or not you use our services or not. But here's some options you can do. In many cases, people have maybe a few days to make up their mind on what to do with their parents or another relative. So I'd say the key thing to do based on my learnings is when you have some spare time, call a couple home care agencies, get to know them, get to know their services, or take a tour at a senior living community, get to know the operations, the choices out there. Because right now, especially as people age, there's more and more services that are out there, and you have a very fragmented industry where you have a lot of choices, but people don't know that until it's almost too late. And so I'd say get educated, do your homework, and and so then you can make a plan when the time comes.
SPEAKER_02I love it. It's like that old saying plan for the worst and hope for the best. You know, just get educated, get educated. Ted, you had a question.
Care Options From Home To Homes
SPEAKER_00Well, one thing I was going to mention was, you know, to your point, my mother in law, we we Dealt with that. She went into the hospital and they said we're not going, we're she's either have to go to a care facility, sure, or into a long-term place. If you don't have anything in place, we're gonna we're gonna put her in this rehabilitation center. So it's exactly to your point, is you know, you're you're there just trying to figure it out on the on the fly. So a couple of things. One, you mentioned Asian place. Yeah, and then also there's assisted living facilities, bigger places, and they may have memory care side as well. And then I think what you do, if I'm not mistaken, is it's like an individual house with maybe four or five rooms and a small amount of clients there. Is that correct?
SPEAKER_03Exactly, exactly. And there's almost kind of a progression in the perfect world, so to speak, there's a progression. For example, you have home care where you're aging in place, and a time will come eventually where they may not be able to stay there anymore. They might not be able to tether in the home care that they want, or home care over a 24-7 period can be pretty expensive. So then the next stage is usually to move to a community. And you have choices. You have, depending on what the need is, you have large communities, either assisted living or memory care. And you also have the smaller communities, such as the ones we own, which are called RCFEs, or a lot of people call them boarding cares. The larger communities are, in my interpretation and experience, are built, they're like large social models. Uh people go there, they're still relatively functional, they're large populations, they can go down to the movie theater, they have music in the dining room, there's a lot of friends they can mingle with, and that's a good environment for people who can live in that environment. There's also nurses there, and there's also caregivers. Now, the caregiver to resident ratio there is usually like one to 15. You know, so it's it's made for people who know how to function on their own or relatively well. What you also have, if there is some cognitive decline, is you have memory care. Uh, memory care is a whole different situation than assisted living. It's usually in a in a controlled, secured environment. There's extra programs in place for sensory stimulation, and you usually have kind of a lower resident to caregiver ratio, usually like one to nine, one to ten. And again, it's for people who want to live in those broader areas. With regards to the boarding cares, where we usually come into play is when someone really can't stay in a large community anymore. And it usually comes down to the fact that either people don't really participate in the activities, or the parents find that they're just a little too isolated, or they've had too many falls. Again, in order to have a caregiver come to your room in those facilities, you've got to know how to turn on the call button, you've got to know how to call them. And people over a period of time sometimes forget how to do that. And for that and various other reasons, you have falls, and that's when we usually get contacted. Our homes, we operate under a license of six residents. We have two caregivers in the day, we have one wake staff at night. So even while people are sleeping, you never get beyond a six to one ratio. And that's where we get people coming in who need that extra help. And it's usually people with mid-stage to end stage Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia, people with Parkinson's disease. We work with a lot of people who are at end of life for one illness or another, or just people who are of extended age with a lot of age-related infirmities. And so the people we take care of are the ones who, as we say, they need eyes on them all the time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's amazing that uh I know that that's kind of the progression of my mom, went into an assisted living, living on her own, then went into memory care. And then towards the end, we moved her into one of those houses. It was really pretty special. I mean, she was suffering from from dementia, but they would put her in a chair right next to the kitchen, which she loved, you know, all the time, you know, was cooking. And you could just see that there was something there that she enjoyed just just being there. I don't know how much she realized it, but just that individual care was really, really special for her.
SPEAKER_03Right. It's it's it's very close care, it's it's concierge care, plus you're in the you are in the comforts of a home. It's a it's a it's a home.
SPEAKER_00So what about what about long-term care insurance? Are you do you deal with that much at all?
SPEAKER_03We we work with families on helping them kind of navigate the initial process of long-term care insurance. Uh, long-term care insurance is something that they will have procured on their own, usually well before they they place their parent or they received uh caregiver services. Uh, typically, people will uh procure long-term care insurance uh based on the data I've read, anywhere between the age of 50 or 65. And usually the earlier the better, because as you age, the premiums get higher. Where long-term care insurance kicks in is when uh one reaches a stage of life where they really can't get through their key activities of daily living and will need assistance, either caregiver assistance or need to be placed into a community. More specifically, for example, what we see with families is that we will start care with the family. The family will say, My mom or dad has had this long-term care policy for 15 years, they've been paying their premiums, and now we need to enact it. And so, really, what they do is they'll contact the long-term care insurance company. The company will request information, they'll request information of us and check our license and make sure we're in the system to be able to provide the care. But also what the long-term care insurance companies require is kind of an initial assessment that will show what the current status of that person is. And what they look for is they might look to see okay, of the six or eight ADLs, activities of daily living, how many can you do and how many can't you do? And those ADLs might consist of bathing, toileting, ambulating, eating, etc. And in many cases, if you if you can't pass two or three of six or eight ADLs, then most companies will approve you to receive, start receiving benefits. Now, there might be kind of a an extension phase or a copay phase where you need to pay on your own, but after anywhere from one to three months, the long-term care insurance does start kicking in. And the way it works is that the families will pay for the long-term care, they'll pay for our care. We will provide a form to the long-term care insurer, and then they will go ahead and reimburse the family. Okay. You know, so I would say about half of our families overall, within the context of both businesses, have some form of long-term care insurance.
SPEAKER_02And is this something if someone wanted to get ahead of the game and just say, hey, can Gus, can you check out my insurance and see if this is something you can work with down the road in case we need it?
SPEAKER_03Or uh yes, yes. That's what we do. What we do is we would work with them to contact the insurance company and say, What do you need to be able to start implementing the policy?
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_03You know, and and they'll have very specific pieces of information for for the client.
SPEAKER_00I I know one of the other things you you mentioned about being reimbursed was in my mom's case, was the VA was involved because my dad was a veteran, and there was reimbursement from the VA for my mom, who was the spouse of a veteran, and it was significant, you know, which we didn't know about. Somebody had mentioned it to us, and they were very easy to work with to get that paperwork done. You know, you have to navigate paperwork a little bit, but once that's done, it was pretty smooth.
SPEAKER_03Yes, uh the the VA has what they call, and I'm I'm talking uh specifically right now with regards to outpatient care or in-home care, is they have their their homemaker program. And so what this pertains to are for the veterans that do qualify for VA benefits, either the bet the veterans or their spouses. And under that program, the home care companies get directly reimbursed for providing home care for the veteran. You know, we've we've done a few of those cases, and uh what the VA will do is they'll do their own assessment and then they'll determine the number of hours that the veteran or veteran spouse can receive, and then we would provide the home care and then get reimbursed directly from the VA.
SPEAKER_00Interesting. So it sounds like having somebody like you, what you do that can kind of direct people because there are those benefits that a lot of people aren't familiar with. Right. And you know, they're out there, they just have to be someone needs to tell them about it so they can take advantage of those.
Paying For Care And Finding Benefits
SPEAKER_03Yes, and and and it does get fair, I'd say I it gets fairly convoluted, and there's a lot out there, and you have to spend a lot of time working through it. For example, uh, we talked about the VA Homemaker program. There's also a program called Veterans Aid and Attendance, which is completely different than the VA Homemaker program. That was something that we had worked on, you know, for my mom based on my dad's military service. And that's a whole different spectrum of forms and applications, et cetera, et cetera. And then you sometimes also have some Medicare advantage reimbursement. You have some reimbursement from the federal government for certain dementia programs. And then also in the state of California, there are some programs for when you're in a facility called the Assisted Living Waiver Program, where the state of California will help supplement some of the bill for care, for example, at one of our facilities. And so it it and it takes it takes a while to understand these programs and find out about them. And even me with being in the the business for a number of years, you're always uncovering another avenue of funding, or should I say, of benefit for the family.
SPEAKER_02Right. Gus, what about the uh I know several families who may they have a relative or a child who is available to care for the for them? What what is what do you do to, and maybe I'm not gonna hold you to this, but because this doesn't sound like what you're doing specifically, but maybe you know about it, is what do you do if there's a family member who can care for their mom or dad? And how can they be, can they be reimbursed by the government? Can that become a job for them? Uh is there something like that out there, or how do you deal with that? Or do you know anything about that?
SPEAKER_03I I don't know anything specifically about that. I do know that, and this is indirect to your question, where the VA under the homemaker program may have what they call respite care services for when the family member can no longer take care of the person or they they're suffering burnout.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_03In some cases, the the home care company can come in and give that uh person some respite. And that's very similar to the guide program as well. That's that's funded through CMS. It's provided to give respite care to the family caregiver, not paying the family caregiver, but giving them a break and having a professional caregiver service like ours come in and get paid directly from CMS. Okay. Very good, very good.
SPEAKER_02Because it sounds like you are tied into or have a bunch of knowledge of a suite of different connections for people that are entering this fourth quarter or overtime, as we call it sometimes. What do you you and but you also mentioned that you own a couple homes that provide the services? Is that correct?
SPEAKER_03Yes, yes. In uh 2019, we purchased some homes. There are existing care homes in in La Jolla, California. We're right on the Mount Soledad area, which is kind of right above the Balboa Avenue area, adjacent to the freeway. Uh, they're two very nice homes, well established, licensed with certified registered caregivers, et cetera. We've been operating those homes for five years now.
SPEAKER_02Okay. And what do you most enjoy? This is gonna be a more personal question. What do you most enjoy about providing that service? What do you get out of it, Gus?
SPEAKER_03Well, it's really helping people. You know, it comes down to helping people. And and that's probably why, you know, to a certain extent, why you went into healthcare in general many years ago. And I think that's a big driver for a lot of people, whether they go into health care to be a pharmacist or a nurse or a doctor, you're you're dealing with people all the time. And and so you there's a big there there's a need to be able to enjoy helping people. Because when it comes to medical items, medical information, there's a lot out there that the lay public doesn't understand.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_03And so I get a lot of pleasure at explaining these things to people and trying to make it easier for them to understand, whether it's being, you know, doing a consultation as a pharmacist or just helping someone in one of our care homes that might be having kind of a hard day.
SPEAKER_02Excellent. Awesome. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00What what do you see with somebody that might be in one of your homes or just in general as they age? What's the biggest challenge for them? Is it physical? Is it loneliness? Is it memory care? Is it all of the above? Just depending on the individual?
SPEAKER_03Well, I think the the biggest one is there's a number of answers to that. The biggest one is being in a situation, being in a home that's not yours, you know. So that's usually the the key, the key challenge for them. With that said, some people are at a certain phase of dementia where they don't automatically realize that. Or if they do, it's not that big of an issue. But to a lot of people, it is, you know. So that's that's some of the things that they have to contend with. But also as you age, things change. You you lose friends, you know, not all of your family's in town, you're in a different environment. And so, yeah, you know, you in order to provide the service in the right way, you you really have to be empathetic to that.
SPEAKER_02So, Gus, is you know you were coming on here today, and we're gonna move into the the section that of the show where Ted shares a song. But before we do, was there anything on here that you haven't spoken about that you wanted to speak about? This is your time to kind of shine. And if someone wanted to get a hold of you, how could they do that?
SPEAKER_03Yes, again, you know, a big part of what I do is make myself available for people if they have questions. I you that usually mention that either on the phone when we have an incoming call or when I give a tour. You know, my my common statement is that I do this every day, and most people do it twice in a lifetime, maybe. So we function as a resource, you know, as a professional courtesy. You know, I can be reached on my phone number, 858-245-3766, or I'm at Gus at La Jolla Senior CareHomes.com.
SPEAKER_02Excellent, excellent. We'll make sure we add that that link into the uh show notes. So if people someone wants to reach out and ask some questions, they'll uh get connected with you. Thanks for sharing, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, my pleasure. Yeah, this has been great. I mean, and when when Doug and I started doing this podcast, I think the first podcast we mentioned, the fourth quarter was from 60 to 80. And we we had a lot of pushback on that. People saying that, you know, yeah, it's more than that. We're it's pushed out. And to your point, what did you call it? The silver wave or the silver tsunami. Yeah, yeah, I mean, and that's you know, that's it. It's just people for a number of reasons taking better care of themselves, whatever it may be, but are living longer, which is pretty cool. Going going to our music, I mean, you know, it's always always a challenge for me to come up with with songs that kind of relate. And I was going through some last night. I actually uh heard a song, but the end of the song is kind of just struck a chord because of our friendship and you know when it started and things that we went through, and you know, it just seemed like this age was so far uh in the future, you know. And was it last September we went to our 50-year class reunion? I mean, it it's here. So this this kind of struck a chord. I'll I'll just play this and you can comment after.
Friendship Song And Final CTA
SPEAKER_01Remember when 37 so long now looking back just a step in the stone to where we are, where we went, did we do it all the way? When the children grow up move away, we won't be sad, we'll be glad for all the life we've had, and we'll remember when I'm not even gonna comment on that.
SPEAKER_02Very appropriate. Yeah, because uh I'm getting emotional. I'm getting emotional. But Gus, when you heard that song, well, what what'd you think of? What what hit you in the heart?
SPEAKER_03Uh time flies, yeah. You know, time flies and a lot of good memories.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, very cool. Well, Gus, thank you for being on the show and and sharing your heart with us, you you and your wife, you know, what you guys do is really truly a blessing. And and as you said in the show here, you know there's not enough of the types of resources you guys provide for the silver tsunami that's here and still coming. So God bless you. Thank you for doing what you do. Ted, is there anything else?
SPEAKER_03My pleasure.
SPEAKER_02Oh, absolutely. Ted, is there anything else you want to say? Nope. Nope. Just do what you always do, Doug. I will do what I always do and say God bless and peace out. If you like what you heard, be sure to subscribe, follow, share an episode. If you want to leave a comment, go to the show notes. There's a text link there. We will receive an anonymous text from you with any comments or suggestions. Thanks again for tuning in, and most importantly, keep on coming back.