Voices From the Frontline

Considering all the high-level work that health plans and their partners put into designing care programs, it can be easy to miss the perspective of people who actually provide care on the frontline. We were extraordinarily lucky to have several practitioners visit The Helper Bees headquarters to relate their firsthand experiences with the senior care landscape.

Our guests participated in two panels hosted by members of the THB team to tell us more about the kinds of care they provide, the challenges of connecting older adults with the help they need, and the opportunities we have to improve support for aging populations. Both sessions yielded a wealth of invaluable insights into caregiving from the people who do it and see it all.

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Perspectives From Practitioners

Each speaker at this panel sees aging-related care through a different lens. Lynn Greenblatt, an experienced family caregiver, runs a support group and resource directory called Caregiving Cafe in Austin, Texas. Andrew Davis, LCSW, manages a private practice and previously worked in a hospital.  Dylan Lowery is the Director of Community Engagement at RBJ Senior Housing, a living community for older adults. Here are some of the highlights from their lively discussion:

• Being Proactive: It's never too early to set ourselves up to age well, especially if we hope to live at home for as long as possible. Preparation can be everything from installing ramps in your house before you need a wheelchair to simply staying social, active, and physically fit — as Mr. Davis put it, "If you want to be able to dance at 85, you need to start dancing right now."
• Overcoming Resistance: Sometimes it's tough to get our parents and grandparents to accept support. Older adults can be more receptive to care when it isn't positioned as an obvious form of assistance — for example, instead of telling them you scheduled a companionship visit, say "someone's coming over to play a game." Keeping the conversation more casual, rather than setting a serious and overly formal tone, is a good strategy in general. In Mr. Lowery's experience, emphasizing the community aspect and proximity to useful resources is a good way to make people more excited about transitioning to senior housing.
• Caregiver Support: Caregivers should feel comfortable suggesting support for each other as well as for their care recipients. In the words of Mrs. Greenblatt, "My vision as a caregiver is to make it clear to everyone that when they become a caregiver, they should call this number [or that number, or another number …]" — basically, to make sure they know that guidance and resources are available, and they don't have to navigate everything alone. Social workers and care management teams can also work together more closely to eliminate care gaps that cause friction for seniors.
• Low-Cost Resources: Services like food pantries, exercise groups, and creative writing classes are low-cost ways to support members' health and well-being and prevent or delay more expensive health events down the line. Assisting nonprofit organizations that provide services like these is a fantastic way to make preventative care more accessible to a wider population of older adults.
• Cross-Team Coordination: Lots of people might play a part in caring for one older adult, and while it's understandable for everyone to focus on their own lane, a community-based approach could serve everyone well. Family caregivers, social workers, post-discharge planners, housing administrators, and other care management teams can work together more closely to eliminate the care gaps that cause friction for seniors.

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Caregiver Support Across Modalities: Adult Day Services

Our next panelist represented another kind of care organization: adult day care centers. Suzanne Anderson is the CEO of AGE of Central Texas, an organization that supports, as she calls them, "thrive centers" — places where older adults can go during the daytime to socialize, have a nutritious meal or two, and let family caregivers go to work or take time for themselves. Her talk on this amazing but underutilized resource left us with some key takeaways:

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• A Boon for Both Members and Families: Adult day care centers provide an enormous value to the older adults that attend them and the caregivers that take comfort in them. According to Ms. Anderson, health outcomes are 30% better mentally and 59% better physically for seniors that use adult day services, with socialization and food security standing out among their most impactful benefits. Caregivers, meanwhile, can have confidence that their loved ones are spending time somewhere fun and safe while they take care of their own daily needs.
• Financial Barriers: The majority of adult day care services are nonprofit, with Medicaid reimbursements covering only about one-third of the daily cost per member. Focusing greater financial support on these low-cost resources would likely drive better health outcomes that result in long-term savings for both members and plans.
• Other Challenges: Adult day services are difficult to put into place for other reasons beyond expense: legal requirements, staffing minimums, doctors' orders, etc. Working to overcome these barriers could prove beneficial to plans if these low-cost preventative services are more widely used.

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We can't thank our four speakers enough for sharing their time and perspective with us. If you would like to support any of these nonprofit organizations in their efforts to care for older adults, please visit the links provided above to make a donation — anything you can give to help would be greatly appreciated.

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