Leslie Newlife

Addressing Potential Client Fears Directly

 

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Most often, the decision to enter a nursing home is made at a point of crisis for a family that has been discussing it for some time, but has put the decision off out of fear. Marketing departments tend to avoid difficult conversations, but sometimes, speaking directly about family concerns indicates that you understand their worries and are willing to address them. What are these fears, and how can we address them directly to encourage potential residents to choose our facilities over others available?

Ask. When a family comes in to see the facility, you can simply say, “A lot of our families are in crisis when they come here for this discussion. Do you have any immediate needs or concerns?” The industry often feels a need to talk around the issues of aging and death, but that is why people enter nursing facilities. Though they may remain in denial about fatal outcomes, families are certainly aware that their loved ones are significantly altered by age or illness, and even physicians struggle with direct speech about needs and expected outcomes. Families are reassured to discover that their fears are founded, and that someone is interested in providing for their needs at a difficult time.

Listen. In the aftermath of a fall, sudden illness, or decline of a love done, families may be rushed through the medical system, and their concerns dismissed. They may have been told that a parent needs to go into a nursing home, with very little time to discuss specific issues, and may have received only a short, dismissive speech from a busy hospitalist. Allow the family to speak, to tell you about their loved one, and even to share their own feelings. You can gain useful information about a potential client and family in this way, and it assures them that you are interested in the well being of the whole person involved, and not just filling an empty bed.

Provide. Having heard the specific fears, address them. If they are concerned about a fussy eater or dietary restrictions, show them the week’s menu options. If staffing is the issue, show them busy, cheerful hallways. A small volunteer resident welcoming committee, for each unit where it is possible, is a great selling point, indicating that there can still be an active social life, and meaningful friendships to be made after admission for long term care. If it is practical, keep a furnished room or suite for display, to show how personal and home-like facility life will be.

Families may enter facilities in fear, but they can leave in comfort if time is taken to truly hear them. Active listening may be the difference between choosing your facility and another. Each family harbors its own collection of concerns, and the successful facility uses simple terminology to approach them with honesty and respect.

Straightforward Caregiving: 8 Duties of a Caregiver

 

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Opting to get an in-home caregiver can be a godsend; however, if expectations are not made clear from the beginning, the whole experience can turn into a total nightmare. Part of the confusion comes from the fact that the duty of a caregiver changes based on the patient’s level of need. All that to say, there is no boilerplate routine that a caregiver brings to the table. Instead, a plan of care needs to be carefully crafted to address the specific needs of your loved one. To help, we’ve put together a “no-fluff” list of eight duties that will provide the basis of a well-thought-out care plan.

Team Huddle

Communication is key. Clearly outline your expectations and requirements to your caregiver to make their job description crystal clear. Things such as hours of care needed, household duties, shopping lists, and strengths and limitations of your loved one should be discussed in detail. In addition to the initial meeting, periodic meetings should be scheduled for feedback and updates on your loved one’s health and changes in behavior. This would also be the apropos moment to give the caregiver a five-cent tour of the abode, so that they can orient themselves to the property.

Help with Activities of Daily Living

Help in this area includes, but is not limited to: transferring (walking), toileting, bathing, dressing, and eating. Transferring in and out of bed, wheelchairs and cars may also fall within the caregiver’s scope of care, depending on your loved one’s level of ability.

Meal Prep

Daily meals should be prepared to ensure that your loved one’s daily nutritional needs are met. This can also include shopping for food as well.

Meds

Assist or monitor daily intake of medications. This is of paramount importance if your loved one suffers from dementia.

Getting Around

Driving to and from medical appointments, running errands, and leisurely outings.

Housekeeping

In more cases than not, a patient may lack the mobility necessary to keep their house in order. With that said, make a list of house cleaning responsibilities that will help your loved one reside in a clean living environment. Household duties such as mopping, vacuuming, dusting, cleaning,taking out the trash and recycling, and getting mail are commonly requested of caregivers.

Gimme a Break

No one in their right mind can do this job 24/7: It is physically and emotionally draining. Scheduling time for your caregiver to get some downtime is in everyone’s best interest. If your caregiver is working at their optimal level, your loved one is sure to get the best possible care.

Be a Friend

This could be as simple as watching TV, talking, playing cards, or going to the movies.  During the more challenging times, a caregiver may need to be there for emotional support and be a shoulder to cry on.

Baking these eight caregiver tips into your loved one’s plan of care will reduce stress and make for a more pleasant experience. Find a home care provider now.

3 Quick Tips for Care Providers to Enhance their Presence in Google

 

SEO

If your facility or service offered has a website or some sort of web presence, there is a good chance you’ve heard of the term “SEO”. The term Search Engine Optimization encapsulates a number of different marketing tactics that help get your senior care services in front of the right audience. These SEO tactics can involve making changes to both your website in addition to building your brand through other channels including Social, Email Marketing, Link Building, and more. In an attempt to keep this post both digestible and actionable, we’ll cover 3 quick Local SEO tips to help your senior care service increase its visibility in your local market.

Local Search Engine Optimization tactics are a great way to help smaller websites connect with the local population who are performing searches online in their target geography. Google, and other popular search engines like Bing, Firefox, and Internet Explorer, look at a user’s geographic location when they perform a search whether they include a local term in their search query or not. What this means is, if Joe Smith searches “assisted living residences” in Atlanta and Jane Doe searches “assisted living residences” from her home in Detroit, the two will see a different set of search results. As one would hope, each search includes a set of local results specific to the city each person is performing that search from. Today, we’ll cover 3 Local SEO tips to help you increase your visibility with search engines in 2018.

Create and Claim your Google Business Page
Let’s take a look at the two images from above. One way to increase your visibility and rise up the list of results is to create, claim, and maintain your Google My Business page. Each and every business that has a physical address, whether it be a care residence or business office, should get started by visiting https://www.google.com/business/. All you need to register your business is an active Gmail account which you will use to log in and out of your Google My Business account. The first and most important step is to login, find your business where it is located in Google Maps, and claim your business listing by requesting a post card from Google. In order for Google to confirm you represent the business you claim to, Google will mail a postcard with an activation code to the physical address where you claim your business is located. The code is typically only active for 30 days so business owners must login and enter the verification code within that time or else the code will expire and a new postcard will need to be requested.

Within your Google My Business account owners have the option to post new content, display business hours, link to social profiles, update images,and even build a website! Be sure to carefully review all of the business categories available to you accurately represent your business. Claim your business listing and be in control of what people interested in your service see and read first. Did we mention this is a FREE business listing? Get started today!

Encourage Reviews and Questions with your Google My Business Listing
Now that you have created your Google My Business page, encourage your customers or residents to review your facilities and services that accurately depict your business offerings. In 2018, very few people like to make decisions online without hearing others experiences with the business or product. Google understands this and therefore will reward businesses who have a higher number of positive reviews for their business. To leave a review in Google users must be logged into their Gmail account which will be linked to their review. There is a clear correlation in Google’s local search results between the number of positive reviews and the position of many business listings.

Something new we started to see within business listings in 2017 and into 2018 is the Questions & Answers section where internet users can ask a question publicly and business owners can respond. This increased engagement between customers and business owners offer a simple way to get popular questions answered fast. The more active your business listing is, the better it will perform and reach more internet users.

Include Location-Based Keywords in Page Titles and Headings
Our last and final tip is a tried and tested tactic used by local businesses since the beginning of SEO. If you serve a specific market, city, or town, include location-based keywords in your page titles and headings within the content of your web pages. If my retirement community is located in Las Colinas, Texas, then I’ll want to be sure to include “Las Colinas” or”Las Colinas, TX” or “Las Colinas, Texas” within my page titles and headings. By doing this, we are essentially communicating to Google that anyone looking for information on retirement communities in Las Colinas will want to see my page or my site because each page includes content and information related to that topic. Taking one step back, Las Colinas is close to the densely populated city of Dallas, it would also be a good idea to target potential residents currently living in Dallas by creating content that informs visitors about the quality services located a short drive away.

SEO and specifically Local SEO, provides opportunities for the small niche care and service providers to compete in their local markets. A carefully and strategically designed website can thrive against large national brands with a focused local approach to their content and online promotion. If you are new to SEO and local promotion following these three recommendations is a great place to start. You don’t need a full-service digital marketing firm to increase visibility of your service and drive a few extra leads each month. Let these recommendations be the tip of your exploration into increasing your online presence and local SEO optimizations for your website.

Tips for Preparing Your Home for Senior Caregiving

 

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Care providers moving a senior from their home or the hospital into a care provider’s home is challenging for all involved. To smooth the transition, family can consider taking the steps listed below. Following these tips, care providers also encourage independence and choice which will lighten the load of unnecessary work.

Mobility

Clear all pathways and stairs of items. Place pathway lights from the loved one’s bedroom to the bathroom, kitchen, and other living areas. Care providers make passage safe should the loved one want a midnight snack or need to go to the bathroom. These lights require no installation but are battery operated and placed on the wall without nails. Care providers can acquire a cane with a grabber attached. The grabber unseats from the cane to pick up an item or reach up to a cupboard. Family can acquire carpets, designed to place on ice, to allow for appointments, errands, and socialization in winter weather.

Food Preparations and Meals

Care providers can arrange plates, eating utensils, saucepans, and even an over-the-bed tray table at a safely accessible height to reduce fall risks. Foods in cupboards and in the refrigerator are items to place at accessible heights.

Finances

Care providers should plan ahead to keep discretionary funds available. Elder parents sometimes choose to go without funds rather than ask for money out of pride or for fear of being a burden.

Socialization

Care providers should make sure the senior has phone numbers and contact information of friends to stay in touch for calls, outings, and visits.

Prescriptions

Medication planners are useful in making sure your loved one takes medication correctly and on time. Some planners verbally remind the individual for breakfast, lunch,dinner, and bedtime. Sections are often removable to allow for taking medicine during outings.

Hygiene and Grooming

If necessary, care providers should request a doctor’s prescription for a shower chair. Care providers can place back brushes within safe reach to promote independence. Family should allow for as much privacy as possible during showers. Clothing carefully placed at accessible heights also reduce fall risk in the bedrooms.

Hobbies

If loved ones enjoy certain hobbies, make supplies available in a designated area to provide structure and enjoyment during the day.

Cost

Care providers need not bear the full financial brunt of the above items. Ask specialists, before the loved one discharges from the hospital, which items insurance covers and to assist in acquiring the items. Care providers can also include siblings and other family members in funding the loved one’s needs from the beginning. All of the above listed items are available online and often priced below twenty dollars. In completing these steps before transition, care providers/family are setting the home up for a caring experience for all involved.

SEO Best Practices for Senior Care Providers

 

SEO

As a senior care provider, you take pride in the care you offer to all of your clients. Reaching those clients, however, provides a unique challenge. When you create content, you must create content that is aimed at both seniors and the adult children who are helping to make the decisions about their care. By paying attention to the best practices in SEO for senior care providers, you can improve your ability to reach both sides of the potential customer coin.

Best Practice #1: Create High-Quality Content

The most important aspect of SEO is creating high-quality content that your visitors actually want to read. That means focusing on more than just advertising through your blog! A great post offers genuine value to either the seniors who are looking into your care options or the adult children who are seeking options for their parents.

Best Practice #2: Focus Local

As a senior care provider, you’re looking for seniors within your specific area who are in need of care, not people who are halfway across the country. When you get visitors to your site, you want them to be visitors who are in your geographic area and therefore can turn to you for their care needs. Focus on increasing your local SEO efforts to help bring in visitors who are more likely to use your services.

Best Practice #3: Keep Up with Keyword Research

What information are seniors and their adult children searching for concerning your industry? Take a look at the keywords that are most important to your business. Are they searching for “hospice” or “in-home care” most often? Do adult children want to know how to decide what type of care their senior loved ones need, or are they searching for information about how to choose the best provider? Keyword research will give you deeper insights into the minds of your potential customers.

Best Practice #4: Pay Attention to Competitors

You should never be ignorant of the blog posts and other content your competitors are posting. While you don’t want to duplicate it, keep an eye on their strategies. What are they offering that you aren’t? What types of content are highly successful for them? Utilizing those strategies can have benefits for you, too.

Building SEO for your senior care business is an ongoing effort. By utilizing these key practices, you can improve your search ranking and increase your success with your customers.

Check back next week for tips to improve your website’s Local SEO.

The Bottom Line: Assisted Living Costs

 

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The national average for an assisted living facility in 2017 for a private, one-bedroom unit was $45,000 a year, but costs can be more than 50 percent higher in some states and a third lower in others. The costliest states for assisted living are Delaware: $72,000, Alaska $72,000, New Jersey: $70,000, Massachusetts: $67,000, and Rhode Island: $62,000. The least expensive states are Missouri: $32,000, Georgia: $34,000, South Carolina $34,000, Arkansas and North Dakota: $36,000.

Although no one wants to send mom or dad halfway across the country, a look at the finances may prove that less expensive assisted living will allow more money for plane tickets for visits. The question to ask is how often you visit now and how often you and your senior feel is appropriate for visits.

Other financial line items to look at are the costs of home care and transportation for seniors no longer able to drive. Assisted living facilities generally include assistance with housekeeping, personal care, and provide meals even if the unit contains a kitchen area. If your senior has to pay for rides to the doctor, house cleaning, grocery delivery, and other such needs, calculate the cost and include it in the equation.

Recreation and socialization needs vary widely. If your senior likes to shop, go to movies, dine with friends, attend clubs, how much will this cost from their present home? Many of these social and recreational activities are included in assisted living. What about public transportation? Is it easily reached from home or is the assisted living center closer to a bus line?

The critical question is which does the senior prefer: to live at home or move into an assisted living facility. Run the numbers so they will know which is more affordable — and how much of their assets they willing to spend on living where they choose.

It is impossible to put a price on happiness or on peace of mind. Both must be factored in when making such a drastic life decision.

Instagram Marketing 101: Is Your Picture Worth 1,000 Likes?

Instagram

Posting pictures of your product or service is easy, right? Nothing could be farther from the reality content marketers face when disseminating compelling, engaging, authentic visual media.  Instagram seems to have grown in popularity among marketers, and has maintained a strong hold within the top five most popular social networking sites.

So, what does it take to curate a strong Instagram account with images that truly reflect a company or brand? It takes insight, decisiveness, and a clear message.

Optimize Bio Content

A successful Instagram page requires more than beautiful images. The platform allows 150 characters for profile bio content. Overlooking this element mean missed connections with potential followers who misunderstand your brand.  As a matter of fact, after registering your account/username and selecting a profile image, your next step should be crafting a direct, concise bio. Consider encouraging engagement with a branded hashtag or including a CTA to your website. Bonus pro-tip: Use a link shortener such as Google to save valuable content space.

Know Your Audience

This should go without saying, but it is worth repeating as you embark on your visual media journey. Understanding your audience when communicating predominantly through images is perhaps more important than ever. Your subject matter, composition, color choices, filters, and accompanying text must all speak to audience expectations and needs. Your images should not simply mirror your product or service. Instead, aim to tell a story, showcasing your brand in action, in a way that reflects your audience’s lifestyle.

High-Quality Images

Image quality considers a variety of elements, including camera capability, image clarity, composition, gradation, and light/color balance. In a sea of images, your photos need to exhibit pristine attention to detail in order to stand out. Arrange your products artfully with bold contrast, demonstrate action in professional service images. Familiarize yourself with Instagram image resolution settings, and don’t be afraid to explore filters and editing tools.

Contests

Instagram recommends photo contests as “a great way to increase visibility of your brand” on the platform. Contests are an engaging strategy to disseminate brand awareness and acquire audience loyalty—especially when prizes are involved.

Engage

Do not simply post your image and step back from the community. Be a part of the community. Engage with a respond to your audience. Ask questions to learn more about your followers and keep discussions growing. Use relevant hashtags to encourage further connectivity and conversation. Make your audience feel appreciated, and they will keep coming back to see more.

Can GPS Tracking Device Help A Senior in Your Life?

GPSTracker

When seniors have a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, the world is a scary place. However, ‘scary’ is a mild term compared to the terror of having a loved one lost because of wandering. The worry, grief, and fear takes hold of the caregiver or family. The person lost is in a state of confusion, and panic because of not being in a familiar area, and they can’t find their way home. Time, cost, and concern weighs heavily on the local law enforcement and those searching for the victim. It’s not an easy time for anyone, but there is a helpful solution.

GPS Tracking Device

Tracking devices for seniors help take the guess-work out of finding those who wander. It’s due to pinpointing the area and direction where the senior meandered while wearing the device in a bracelet, necklace, or key ring. In The Daily Mail, a local newspaper in London, the law enforcement are hoping for more utilization of tracking devices because of 44,000 who go missing each year, a large number being ‘wander walkers’.

Research performed by AARP show the numbers for senior caregivers will reach to 117 million by 2020 in America.

By 2020, 117 million Americans are expected to need assistance of some kind, yet the overall number of unpaid caregivers is only expected to reach 45 million.

Is there Opposition?

Unfortunately, the concerns pose some opposition believing the tool is taking away human rights. Therefore, the following suggestion helps to alleviate those concerns:

  • Each resident and family must know the drawbacks as well as the benefits to owning the device.
  • The issuing of these devices goes only by a case-by-case basis to ensure of no misunderstandings.

When there is an opportunity to help someone as fast as possible, to alleviate fear, concern, and worry, and to help in the way of time, and cost, a tracking device is one benefit for everyone involved.

Find help caring for Alzheimer’s patients at NewLifeStyles.com.

Senior Living Marketing: Ask Interesting Questions, Get Interesting Promotional Material (Part 2)

Welcome back to the second half of our two-part article on how to get high quality marketing material for your senior living community simply by asking the seniors. Rather than promoting what you think will be popular, by talking to the current members of your community and asking interesting questions, you can get a variety of interesting and praise-filled answers that will be much more persuasive promotional copy than simply highlighting the menu again. Last time we talked about showing a sense of adventure and putting the spotlight on favorite amenities. Join us as we pick up where we left off with welcoming family topics.

Provide A Warm Family Welcome

One of the biggest fears for both seniors and their loving relatives is that an assisted living facility will create distance. They have a hard time imagining where they’ll meet with their parents or grandparents and how enjoyable visits can be when hosted in your venue. While adults are content to sit and talk anywhere well-lit and comfy, families often worry about how child-friendly a facility will be for visiting grandchildren. To answer all of these questions, ask around for the answer to:

What do grandchildren like to do when they come visit?

You may get a dozen different answers to this question and all of them will be unique and valuable illustrations of family visits and child-friendly activities. Your seniors will enjoy the opportunity to talk about their grandchildren and the stories they tell will serve as both encouragement and comfort to new residents who want visits with younger relatives to be enjoyable and welcoming.

Celebrate Strong Friendships

Many seniors experience a social renaissance when they join an assisted living community because they are suddenly surrounded by many other people their own age. While sharing interests and building friendships can happen anywhere from quiet card games to walks in the garden, you can show off your fantastic socializing opportunities by answering the simple question:

Where do residents socialize the most?

The stories and answers that this question will inspire will be a combination of your best locations and personal preferences that will highlight the social life of your senior community. Whether you have a beautiful grove of trees, an enchanting fire pit for evening gatherings, or even a fantastic games room, the personal accounts of resident’s favorite social activities are sure to create engaging material for your promotional needs.

Seniors and families today want to hear real stories about how your facility handles everything from family visits to self-enrichment. Whatever is special or most enjoyed about your senior living community, ask your residents and staff to share their side of things with future members to create a truly personalized marketing campaign.

For more interesting tips on promoting your senior living community or services, contact us today! See part one!

The Stigma of Hospice Care: 3 Myths Debunked

Myths & Facts

When my mom entered hospice care, I thought I knew what to expect. I thought hospice would be a terrible place.  I had images of dark narrow halls with flickering lights and wart faced nurses who had been kicked out of hospitals for being too brutal.  I could not have been more wrong.  I learned so much about hospice care from my experience and my hope is that my understanding can be passed on.  The following list will help to demystify hospice care and address some common concerns.

Myth #1: Hospice is a bad place where people go to die.

First of all, Hospice is not a place.  Hospice is a type of care that people receive when they are in their last days.  The care providers are there to make things as easy as possible and they not only serve the patien tbut the family as well.  Hospice care is all around attention for everyone involved.

Myth # 2: If I accept hospice care (for myself or a family member) that means that I am giving up hope.

Try not to think of it as giving up hope.  Instead, think of it as a shift in thinking.  Hospice care is about comfort and about giving quality care in a person’s end days.  Our hope is that a patient and their family are as comfortable as possible.

Myth # 3: Hospice nurses are mean, and have been broken down by being surrounded by death.

A hospice nurse cannot be assigned to that job on a whim.  They have a special gifting which allows them to be incredibly empathetic in a hard situation.  They also have special training and are often giving extensive debriefing after each situation in order to assure great care for all involved.  This includes the patients, their families and the nurses themselves.

When people hear the word hospice, they immediately go running for the hills.  Hospice means death and death is scary.  Yes, death is sad,but sad does not necessarily have to equal scary.  With the right care,the right people, and the right conversations, death can be a beautiful transition.  It is the stigma behind death that has led to the stigma behind hospice.  Hospice is a very misunderstood form of care.  We hope this blog has helped to further eliminate some of that stigma.  For more information, please contact us.