How Senior Living Advisors Can Help You Make the Right Move
Last Updated: August 20, 2018
“Be sure to visit lots of places before you decide.” That’s one of the most often repeated pieces of advice people hear when they start looking for an assisted or senior living community. It’s good advice, but even with plenty of time, comparing multiple communities can be tough. If you’re on a tight deadline to find a residence because of an illness, injury or upcoming hospital discharge, making lots of visits may be logistically impossible.
When you need to make a good decision fast or you have too much on your plate already, a Senior Living Advisor can help you make a good match between you, your parent or senior loved one and a senior living community.
How Senior Living Advisors Help Families Move to Senior Living
Senior Living Advisors help seniors and their families find an assisted living, independent living, memory care or senior living community that’s a good fit for their budget, location and needs.
Geriatrician Elizabeth Eckstrom, M.D., writes in “The Gift of Caring“ that experienced advisors often know the details of all the communities in a particular area and can steer you toward the ones with available space that best suit your needs.
They can also save you time by helping you narrow the number of places that will best serve you, a parent or senior loved one — a big help when you need a place quickly.
How Senior Living Advisors Are Paid
Senior Living Advisors typically work with a referral agency, which gets paid by the communities in their partnership network. This payment model enables the agency to provide their referral services for free to seniors and their families. That may seem like a potential conflict of interest, but Dr. Eckstrom notes that senior living advisors and the referral agencies they work for, often work with a hundred or more communities, so they’re not financially tethered to only a handful of residences.
A Place for Mom, North America’s largest senior living referral agency, has over 400 Senior Living Advisors and 17,000 senior living partners across Canada and the U.S.
If you decide to work with a referral agency, feel free to ask how they get paid so you’re clear on their obligations to you and to the communities they represent.
Ways to Find Senior Living Advisors Who Can Help Your Family
If you’re getting ready for a move from a hospital or rehab center, ask the social worker at the hospital when you contact any communities that the hospital recommends. You can also ask family, friends, neighbors and relatives who’ve already been through the process if they can recommend a Senior Living Advisor who helped them.
If you’re beginning your search well in advance, you can search online for referral agencies that operate at a local or national level. You can also get in touch with one of A Place for Mom’s Senior Living Advisors by visiting: www.aplaceformom.com or calling (866) 592-8119 toll-free.
Whether you’re dealing with an unexpected situation or making long-term plans, a Senior Living Advisor can give you the information you need to make the best possible decisions for you and your family.
2 Comments
-
I need tospeak to an adviso9r. You have my phone #. Martha sWEENEY
-
Thanks Casey Kelly-Barton. Senior living advisors play an important role for elderly community who is ready to live with an independent living.