Creating a virtual senior care specialist arose from personal experience. My parents who had always taken care of themselves (reliably and wholeheartedly) started to miss and fail in the small tasks of daily home living. It was little things at first. Then it just got to a point where they needed my help a lot more than before. My dad failed to take the mandatory IRA withdrawal one year, and he paid a huge fine to the IRS. And I was far away from them in Riverside, CA doing a lot of their things by phone.
The frustration of not knowing for sure what was going on at their home and where to turn for help was daunting. My dad’s hearing declined so much so that he no longer conversed with acquaintances anymore, and he didn’t have anyone to ask for help. Nor was he a person to ask for help. My mother was doing most of the household work. She was the caregiver and spouse, which is very common scenario. But then she too started to have difficulty so much so she both failed the driving exam and also could not handle the checkbook to pay the bills. I know I am preaching to to the choir here because you have experienced similar adventures to put it in a nice way.
And so I wanted someone to turn to and ask where do I go for help to deal with transportation issues, their household finances, medication compliance, cable and garage door services, etc. I wanted somebody to turn to with all the answers. And there was no one individual. Doctors know somethings, neighbors and friends something else, public and private agencies some more but there is no single coordinator. There is no professional to intelligently facilitate the various aspects with respect to growing old in a systematic approach and who has a a real stake in the matter. In a short and simple slogan, there was no one stop shop or go to person.
And hence on a macro level there is this nationwide dilemma for providing adequate care for seniors which is genuinely loving, cost efficient and something that you like. The market place has givens rise to various solutions. None of them are truly effective and all in encompassing.
There is the do nothing approach which is very common and costing Medicare billions of dollars because it ends in senior hospitalization which accounts for over fifty percent of Medicare budget. And what is going to happen to Medicare with the huge government debt and the entitlement programs creating more debt.
Another approach to this dilemma has given rise to assisted living facilities. They are a very expensive and eat up most of your savings and even more of your budget than Medicare’s impact on the US budget. Not only is it costly but a headache because even the placement into an assisted living home is not that easy. There are checklists with meaningful questions to ask and a contract to sign that should be reviewed very carefully (possibly by a lawyer). More importantly though is that what you really want? One of our premises is that you would love to stay at home for as long as possible and it is so important that is our main maxim too – “There is no place like home.” We feel it even after we return from a beautiful vacation: a home cooked meal, our own pillow and bed are so restful, etc.
Then there is the nursing home which I visited as part of our elementary school’s community service project. I said then, “I am not going to ever put my parents in place like this.” I was only ten years old and knew that was not the answer even back then. Medicare does not fund nursing homes by the way; they also are paid either by you or after all your monies are spent, by Medicaid.
Then there is another approach that entails senior case managers, but you are not a case and you definitely do want to be part of a their case load that they manage. You are not the one that is to be managed. You hired them and you call the shots.
And the final solution in today’s market place is the family. Eighty percent of caregivers are some kind of family member. And like you, we did not know who to turn to. For the most part, we all learn the hard way which is by trial and error. Do you want to be affected by one of those errors? Heavens, NO! We wanted to ask ONE person who had ALL the answers. And that was not the case. We had cousins, siblings, co-workers and friends who shared their advice, but no one go to person.
You all have similar stories. So we decided that there had to be a better way. There are financial consultants who help you invest. There are professional trainers who motivate you to exercise. And the list goes on, but there wasn’t this idea of a virtual senior care specialist and an on-line community like Together Helping Seniors. So here we are!
Introduction Our Mission Our Values Our Maxims “Our Journey”