Geriatric Care Management

WHAT DOES A GERIATRIC CARE MANAGER DO?

Each situation is different, and your geriatric care manager will certainly tailor their  services to your needs, but the typical services performed are listed below.

Step 1: Conduct an In-person Assessment
Interview questions will cover a range of issues relevant to your loved one’s health and living situation; including everyday activities, nutrition, safety, depression, finances, memory, insurance, veteran’s benefits, and more. Interviews between a Geriatric Care Manager and seniors can be performed with or without family members present but your care manager should be made aware of all concerns that you have prior to the assessment. It is important that the Care Manger have all the information necessary to do the best job possible for your loved one.

Step 2: Formulate a Care Plan
Your care plan will include both the results of the assessment and the recommended next steps. The care plan should cover in detail the information obtained in the assessment, the recommendations for improvement of your loved one’s quality of care and living situation, what led to the recommendations, what you can expect, and the priority of each recommendation. Some recommendations may be emergent like monitoring of medication and physicians visits or safety issues, others such as diet and hygiene are important to health but are not emergency issues, issues further down the list may involve comfort or other pleasantries. From this list, you and your Geriatric Care Manager will have to determine what can or cannot be handled and how best to handle each care issue. Your care pan will also include regular reassessments.  This will help monitor changes in capabilities and functions such as memory and determine what adjustments need to be made to accommodate those changes.  

Step 3: Arrange Services
Even when services are not available directly through the Geriatric Care Manager, your Geriatric Care Manager is knowledgeable about all of the geriatric services available through other parties and which ones are most effective and reputable. Your Geriatric Care Manager will find out what you can do yourself, what can be done by other family members, matches this to the priority lists and economic abilities, and then helps to arrange for and monitor services. In many cases, the service personnel are more responsive and informative with a Geriatric Care Manager than they would be with you.