The Hidden Challenges of Home Care: Empowering Families with Support, Advocacy, and Social Media

In this episode of Advice From Your Advocates, Attorney Bob Mannor and Lance A. Slatton, known as “The Senior Care Influencer," discuss the challenges and experiences in the long-term care industry, particularly focusing on home care services. Lance shares his personal journey that led him to start a home care company after facing his father's health difficulties. They explore the impact of COVID-19 on home care, the importance of social media and podcasting for outreach, and the various needs of clients, including those with cognitive degenerative diseases. The discussion emphasizes the importance of family support, adapting to caregiving challenges, and planning for the future.

Episode Takeaways:

• Lance's personal experience led to the creation of a home care company.
• COVID-19 did not significantly disrupt their services due to prior preparedness.
• Social media and podcasts can effectively reach and support families in need.
• Home care services are not just for the elderly; they also assist younger individuals with disabilities.
• Families often feel isolated in their caregiving journey, but resources are available.
• Adaptation is key in caregiving situations to meet changing needs.
• Understanding a loved one's wishes is crucial for future planning.
• There are many resources available for families, even if they feel they can't afford them.
• Communication with friends and family is essential to avoid feelings of isolation.
• The importance of advanced directives and legal planning in caregiving.

More about Lance A. Slatton: 

Lance is a writer, author, and Healthcare professional with over 20 years in the healthcare industry.

 Lance A. Slatton is the host of the Award-Winning podcast & YouTube show All Home Care Matters. He is also a senior case manager at Enriched Life Home Care Services in Livonia, MI. Lance was also named a 50 under 50 for 2023 and received the distinction as the Top Influencer for Healthcare and Advocacy for 2024.

Lance is also a columnist for multiple healthcare and news websites and print.
Official Website: https://www.lanceaslatton.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Elder Care Advocacy and Advice
• 7:47 Expanding Home Care Services Through Media
• 16:02 Empowering Families With Care Resources

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

You're listening to Advice from your Advocates, a show where we provide elder law advice to professionals who work with the elderly and their families.

Speaker 2: 0:10

Welcome back to Advice from your Advocates. I'm Bob Manor, I'm a certified elder law attorney in Michigan and we have a really interesting guest today, lance A Slatton. He's an influencer in the long-term care industry and welcome Lance.

Speaker 1: 0:24

Thank you for having me, Bob. It's a pleasure to be here.

Speaker 2: 0:26

Well, and so people can get more information about you at LanceASlatincom. Okay, so, it's LanceASlatincom, and tell us a little bit about your work. I know you have some regional work and then you do some social media and online education, so tell us about both of those things.

Speaker 1: 0:43

Yeah. So you know, without going too far into my personal story right now, my wife and I we were newlyweds and she had already graduated with her career and degree and I was pursuing medical school. And we got a phone call one evening that my father, unbeknownst to us, was recovering from some pretty serious surgery and the home health nurse didn't think he could live on his own. The choices were either going into a short or long-term care rehab facility or come live with us, and I like to think most families, if they're able, they would choose the latter and have them come live with them for a while during their recovery. And my wife and I had no idea what we were getting into.

Speaker 1: 1:22

I quickly came to the realization, you know, if we're going through something like this and this was two and a half years of 24-7 care there's got to be countless other people out there experiencing the same things.

Speaker 1: 1:33

And what really had stood out to us was we had one of the best healthcare systems in the world, and now we're both in Michigan, right, bob? So we'll leave that one there. And never once were we ever offered resources or put into contact with any sort of support services, and it was only when I went to have lunch with a friend of mine that there was a home healthcare company hiring and I was asking them questions and they knew nothing about what they're hiring for or anything. I left that lunch with my friend, called my wife and said you know what? There's got to be a way where we could send people into the home to help families going through what we're going through, because I'm sure there's countless others out there and unbeknownst to us. There's an entire industry already existing. But we didn't know that because no one in our health care community during my father's recovery and procedures ever made us aware of that, and so we started our company.

Speaker 2: 2:26

Let me be clear because I want to make sure that the audience and I understand it's basically saying going in and providing some advocacy and some clarity for families going through this.

Speaker 1: 2:37

Well, it's that and a lot more. It's also providing help with their ADLs, their activities of daily living, the bathing, grooming, toileting, dressing, helping them with medication reminders you know, hands-on care, everything, everything below requiring a licensed healthcare professional.

Speaker 1: 2:54

So, like with my father's situation, we had home healthcare. Medicare will pay for that up to nine weeks at a time, work, home care. Medicare does not cover those services in any state because, as your viewers and listeners may be aware, medicare is federally regulated. Medicaid is a state by state regulation and Medicare does not cover those types of they call them non-skilled services. And so we didn't realize there was services out there like that. So we decided to start a company. We've been in business now for almost 14 years. Last seven we've been the number one rated company in Michigan and I don't say that in a braggadocious way, I say that because we got into this from a very personal experience, a very difficult time, you know, emotionally, physically, financially, trying to support our father. My father and we wanted to help other families, and so that created our company. But as a result of our company we would go over all the counties in southeastern Michigan facilitating caregiver support groups, doing educational talks. I had multiple semi-trailers full of medical equipment and supplies that we would just give to people that churches and senior centers and even some of our prisons would donate to a senior center because they didn't need them. They would donate it to us because they're not in the business of really providing support like that for their participants and their members. And that went on for about seven plus years. Well then, covid rears its head and we made the decision before the governor made the decision for us that you know what, we're going to stop public gathering because of this virus. And it started, as you know, a two week deal and then it was another two weeks. So during that time I'm I'm trying to figure out a way. How can, other than providing our staff into these homes, people that hire us, how can we still do this goodwill? We called it a ministry way of supporting families and giving them these resources.

Speaker 1: 4:46

I heard a podcast one evening and, I'll be the first to admit, knew nothing about what podcasts were. I literally thought they were like your network TV shows and news, just taking the audio and putting it out there for digesting, not realizing anybody could have a podcast. Well, I happened to hear a couple of gentlemen who had a home care company, so that caught my interest and it was really awful quality. It sounded like people were talking in a bathroom. There was echoes. You could hear kids screaming in the background. And that evening I went home and told my wife. I said you know what? We need to start a podcast. Well, her first question to me is what do you know about podcasts? I said absolutely nothing. So I spent several months researching what podcasts were Is there space for us in this area? And we quickly discovered, yeah, there's plenty of room. And so we launched All Home Care Matters in May of 2020. And it's been kind of a whirlwind ever since then.

Speaker 2: 5:39

So the name of your podcast is All Home Care Matters? Yes, all Home Care Matters. Okay, and what's the name of the home care?

Speaker 1: 5:45

company that you Enriched Life. Home Care Services.

Speaker 2: 5:49

Okay, and you service Southeastern Michigan, southeastern Michigan, okay, so is that is my understanding, that's a company that you started yourself, or did you have some partners in that?

Speaker 1: 6:00

No, it's a family-owned business, family-owned and operated, except for, you know, the majority of the staff are, you know, hired staff. But it is a family company. You know we've had several offers over the past few years to, you know, license, our name and stuff, but we're just not really in the mindset right now that we want to give up that name. When you build something from the ground up and you know you build a great reputation, you're very protective of that reputation and it's not to say in the future we wouldn't revisit that, but at this time it's just solely owned and operated by our family.

Speaker 2: 6:34

Now, hopefully, a lot of this is behind us, but I'm always curious about how people, especially people in the long-term care industry and particularly the home care industry, got through that COVID process. So how were you able to continue to service your clients, your families, in that setting where everybody was pretty much afraid to have physical interaction?

Speaker 1: 6:55

Sure and that's a great question and sometimes people raise their eyebrows when I give the answer I'm about to give it didn't really affect us that much. And what I mean by that is you know, when you're dealing with somebody going through chemo or radiation, they already have a weakened immune system. So for us that means our staff are going to go in there, make sure they don't have a cold, they don't have a fever, they don't have a cough. When they're doing personal, one-on-one, hands-on interaction, they're wearing a face mask and they're wearing gloves. We protection, they're wearing a face mask and they're wearing gloves.

Speaker 1: 7:27

We were already equipped for all of that. You know when people were making a mad run on. You know buying masks and finding masks. You know we have a second building in our company and that's all of our supplies and you know equipment, if you will. So we were already well prepared and equipped for it and we were already practicing those. You know PPE personal protection equipment practices really before COVID ever hit.

Speaker 1: 7:47

The difference for us was, you know, we're a lot more mindful if a staff isn't feeling good and maybe they're just taking care of a sweet gentleman or a sweet lady who doesn't have a necessarily a weakened immune system. But now you have to take that extra step and treat them as though they do. Because here's the thing is, I'm sure you guys are aware, with COVID I might have went to pick something up at the drugstore, not realizing I came into contact with somebody with COVID because they didn't know they had it. And now I'm going in to take care of an elderly person, or even a child, whatever the person may be, I might be transmitting that virus unbeknownst to me. So we're taking a lot more precautions. You know, every home was equipped with gallons of hand sanitizer, boxes of masks, boxes of gloves.

Speaker 2: 8:35

I know that some of the home care agencies that we deal with locally here especially the family owned ones, not the franchises were having staffing issues at the time. How did you deal with staffing issues and making sure that you could service your clients?

Speaker 1: 8:51

Thankfully, I can tell you this. We lost one employee only during the entirety of COVID and it was voluntarily. They were in their mid-60s. Their family became very, very concerned and I don't begrudge them this, I don't judge them for this, but I would say it was probably a little more than necessary, if you will, and they were more concerned about their mom and their grandma going into a home and contracting COVID rather than mom or grandma being out in the public doing her grocery shopping, getting her gas and contracting COVID. But I do know, I know companies here locally where we were hired in place of another company because the staff they would tell the family literally we have zero staff, they have all quit or they've all stepped down. We count ourselves very, very fortunate that we did not have that issue during COVID.

Speaker 2: 9:47

So tell us a little bit more about your social media presence and how that. I know that you started telling us about how that came about, but now tell us a little bit more about what you're doing on social media your podcast and things like that and how that's really advanced things and helped people.

Speaker 1: 10:02

Yeah, that really happened by pure accident. It was never intentional. I literally, like I said, I shared how I came up with the idea and it was really a temporary thing for the meantime because, again, when you're going out to, you know six, seven, 10 different communities during the week doing your support groups, educational talks and fun activities, and you know all these concerts. All that's taken away and that's really where I get my joy. I just love interacting with people and either giving them a smile or giving them helpful information, and we needed to find a way for me to continue doing that during COVID. So the solution was a podcast, really designed just for a month at the most, and then you know that couple of weeks that month turned into almost three years. So it really let us hone in on the the craft of the show and improve it and make changes. What worked, what didn't? I got more comfortable. I never wanted to be in front of a camera or a microphone. That wasn't my thing. I wanted to just help people. That's why I was going to go to medical school and we, about six, seven months into the show, one of the major news outlets had reached out and said you know, we got you know, you got our attention. Tell us what you're doing. I knew nothing, bob, about YouTube subscribers. Didn't know. You know like we got our silver creator work from YouTube. Didn't even know that was a thing, didn't know any of this stuff. So they did a really great article about us. Next thing we know like we're going from 50,000 subscribers to 60 to 70. It was just it's been such a fast acceleration that we never really had adjusted for or planned for. It's just this kind of happens really organically. And but the greatest thing about it is I said, okay, this is a great way. We're not just helping our local communities here in Michigan, now we're helping people in Alaska, texas, florida, the UK, australia, asia, india. It's been remarkable to just kind of sit in the middle and watch it. So that's been very rewarding.

Speaker 1: 12:01

And one of my passions is writing. And one of my passions is writing and because of the heightened awareness to our brand and our show, it led to opportunities for me to now, you know, write for several different news platforms, monthly articles, and then I finally forced myself to sit down and write my book. And the book really I don't promote it much, I don't market it, we don't really brand it all that much.

Speaker 1: 12:25

The purpose of the book is something I wish I had back when I first started helping take care of my dad, because, like I said, we never got those resources. We never were asked how can we help you? What can we do for you? Have you guys thought about this? Did you know about that? And so I wanted to kind of write a book that, regardless of where you're at in your caregiving journey whether you're at the beginning, the middle or towards the end there's something applicable in there for anyone throughout, whatever stage of caregiving they're in. And I really, like I said, I wrote it in the lens of what I wish I had back then that I didn't have.

Speaker 2: 13:01

So is there a particular type of audience or families that you find that you're working with mostly? I'll give you an example of what I mean by the question. A few years ago we were looking at our clientele and those that we help, we talk about. We help people find get. 75 percent of the people that we help was someone that had some dementia, alzheimer's or memory issues and I'm curious as to what you're, if that's what you're finding with your home care options or if there's really a whole different kind of approach or typical client that you see.

Speaker 1: 13:43

If I had to say the most common, it would be a cognitive degenerative disease, whether it's dementia or what have you. But I wouldn't say it's the majority, but it's the most common. And what I mean by that is we might have an elderly person who no longer can drive because maybe the glaucoma is preventing them from safely driving and they got the keys taken away. But the son lives in Ohio and the daughter's working full-time for a law firm. They need mom to be able to get to her appointments, make sure mom's seeing her medications correctly. You know things like that. But then we also have really an unspoken group of people that often isn't really considered and that's children with disabilities.

Speaker 1: 14:23

You know there's wonderful state assistance for that, but also finding the help that's going to work right for you, work out best, is rather difficult for families, at least they tell us. Sometimes they age out of those programs but they still their needs haven't aged out. They still have the same needs, if not greater. So you know it's really a range of you know needs and you know illnesses and abilities or lack thereof. I tell people all the time. You know home care isn't just for seniors. You know we've sadly had people in their late 30s who had a very aggressive form of breast cancer. Or you know a gentleman who was working at GM and got hit in the head severely and it caused a brain injury. There's all car accidents, there's all sorts of things that really prevent people from being able to live safely on their own or without some extra assistance.

Speaker 2: 15:20

Can you share with us some of the insight that you help families with? So I know you've had this podcast. Is it mostly YouTube is your primary source, or are you on other social media also?

Speaker 1: 15:32

Yeah, so we're on all the you know the usual suspects Instagram, linkedin, twitter, x, facebook and YouTube and then what we do, so like, let's say, we're interviewing you right now, bob. We would take the video of you and I and then we would put it up on YouTube, but then our team would strip the audio down so you have the audio version, and then they would distribute it out through all the podcast streaming platforms. So any, any episode is digestible on any platform.

Speaker 2: 16:02

What do you find is some of the key insights that you are able to share through your podcast, through social media? That is very helpful to families. I agree with you. It's a really nice thing to be able to reach out to anywhere someone in Alaska that might not have those resources. So what are some insights that you think are most important to share with families?

Speaker 1: 16:26

place my personal, and it may not be the right one, because I don't know if there's a direct, right, correct answer. I think there's a lot of different ways to. You know make potatoes, but for me it's families, knowing that they're not alone. You know, that is probably the loudest and biggest common thread, whether it was our caregiver support groups we facilitate, or, you know, people reaching out to us on the show, or families we encounter that we're helping. They don't know that all these resources are out there. They don't know that there's other people going through similar situations and I take great pride in equipping them with as much information and resources as they probably can handle, and probably more than they even want. But I don't want them to ever feel like you know what, I'm the only one going through this. If I have a second, I could give you an example of that, that'd be great.

Speaker 1: 17:14

So one of our caregiver support groups that we were facilitating, there was a woman that came in first time visitor. And now I was not the one facilitating this group, I was facilitating another one and she came in, just sat there, you know, probably middle-aged, you know not, not maybe more than 55. And she sat there the entire time and you know she had Kleenex, wiped their eyes and, you know, thanked us. And then she did come back to the following meeting, which is encouraging, and that meeting she was very inconsolable, very upset and she decided, you know what I'm going to share what's going on. When they asked her and we don't want ever, ever to make somebody feel like they're being pressured or must talk, you know this is just for you to absorb, if that's what works best for you and she said you know my best friend and her husband and this goes back now I said she's like in her mid fifties. They were kids all the way through elementary, middle school, high school, high school sweethearts, you know, best friends. It was a couple of best friends. And she basically told me I'm, we're not friends anymore and she thought I was too good for her, didn't have time for her. I mean all this just really horrible stuff. And you know we, our advice to her was no-transcript. She'll never have to go through it herself. She can't appreciate the shoes you're walking in right now and the recommendation we give to people.

Speaker 1: 19:06

Sometimes it's hard to have a face-to-face conversation. Sometimes it's hard to have a telephone call. You know people can say things that they may not say in person, on a phone call, and they may not want to talk to you face-to-face. Sit down and write a letter explaining to her what it is you're dealing with daily. You can't go to the dinner and movie this Friday because you know your husband is incontinent and he's, you know, inappropriate. Not his own fault, it's the disease, not him. She's trying to spare him. You know his integrity, but she's also trying to spare you and your husband from the public embarrassment and what might transpire, because she doesn't know day to day what's going to happen and you know that did help her and hopefully you know they're. They're friends now. But people that don't go through it don't understand what they're going through.

Speaker 2: 19:55

No, that's, that's very true and it's very I think it's very difficult. We had a guest on our podcast recently. He talked about so many families tend to. He called it cocoon. He talked about so many families tend to, he called it cocoon.

Speaker 2: 20:06

So once we have this situation, there might be lots of resources out there and they might be different. You know, my mother had Alzheimer's and I remember the last time we probably took her out to dinner and a lot of the family wasn't really acknowledging the issue yet and so but it was. It seemed quite obvious as far as her inability to order a meal or really interact in a fashion that the family or the waitress or anybody would have expected on that. And so sometimes you have to shift and it might not be that you go out to the Olive Garden, but it might be that you know there are resources out there for families, because cocooning into the house, where you just never leave the house, that frankly probably makes it worse.

Speaker 2: 20:48

Now, the gentleman that we had on our podcast, his company offered therapy services for families with forms of dementia and neurodegenerative diseases, and so his point was there's lots of resources out there, but a lot of families are just so uncertain of that and aren't aware of the resources that might be out there, they tend to just kind of lock the door and hide in their house, not seek outside resources, not interact with friends that they've interacted with before, and it sounds like that's kind of one of the things that you help people understand is well, it might not be going out to dinner anymore in the same kind of settings. There's still options and opportunities to go out in the community and not just kind of cocoon yourself into your house and not go out into the community or seek resources you know, adapt to what the situation calls for.

Speaker 1: 21:48

You know um a related, but not necessarily directly related, and be in their reality. You know we had a woman lost her husband of you know, 70 years I think, and every day she's running going around the house looking for and the kids would say you know, mom, dad died, you know, and one of her older kids had passed also. Mom, you know, joey's died. You know that's not serving anybody's benefit, you know if mom is looking for him, he he's at work. Still, you know that little white lie is going to spare her maybe from having a very dramatic emotional breakdown and episode and it might change her whole entire day, which then in turn is not going to help the family, but just adapt to what the situation calls for. It's easy for me to sit here and say that, but it's really the best advice that you can get is adapt to what the situation calls for.

Speaker 2: 22:37

No, that's great advice and the thing is it's one of those things where, if someone's forgotten about a death of a close loved one, why make them regrieve that? Why make them go through that grieving process again? My sisters had come up with a great answer with regard to my mom, who had Alzheimer's, and she would often ask about her mother where's my mom? Or she'd ask about her sister. And so my sisters came up with a great answer Whenever she would ask about her mom, she'd say, oh, she's with Aunt Helen, and when she would ask about her sister Helen, she'd say, oh, she's with mom, because they had both passed. And it was a great answer and it solved and it distracted her from the end where she didn't have to grieve a death anymore. It was just OK, let's move on from that.

Speaker 1: 23:19

Yeah, yeah, great advice.

Speaker 2: 23:22

Well, I appreciate everything that you do and how you educate the community throughout the country, and so any last thoughts that you want to give and then we'll give out your resources again here.

Speaker 1: 23:33

Any last thoughts for our audience families don't take today for granted or tomorrow. Make sure you know what your loved one's wishes are. You know there's wonderful resources out there like elder law attorneys for advanced directives, power of attorneys, living wills, trust, and you know if people can't afford an attorney, there's a wonderful resource it's a couple of dollars called five wishes. You know that's a wonderful tool. I don't know if you've come across those Bob Sure Remarkable resource. And you know, understand and know what your loved one wants to have done or not have done. When that time may come, where they can't share what their wishes are, you'll already know and it can prevent a lot of, you know, heartache and you know tough decisions where you know guilt can be involved and you know sometimes one of the children may want this and the other doesn't want something.

Speaker 2: 24:33

But if you know what your loved, one wants, it takes away all the guesswork. Yeah, that's good. I'll add to that In Michigan, at least in most areas, they're going to be covered by some kind of legal services, where so in my main office it's pretty much anybody over age 60 can get some basic legal services, like you mentioned a patient advocate or a power of attorney. But in probably most areas of Michigan, if they don't have the means to hire a lawyer, they should have access to that. I'm guessing in most areas of the country they have something like that.

Speaker 2: 25:02

So I agree with you 100% that those are important things to do, and if you don't feel like you have the money or resources to do it, it's still important to lay out you know what you would want to happen if you can't specify your medical desires anymore or you're not able to communicate those, you know those answers anymore. Absolutely so, lance, I'm happy that you're out there educating the community and for those interested, his podcast is All Home Care Matters, via YouTube and all the other places you can find podcasts. Thank you so much, bob, and if you like our podcast, don't forget to subscribe. We're Advice From your Advocates and you can find us on any place that you can find podcasts or you can go to our website at manorlawgroupcom and go to our podcast link. So thank you for listening and we'll see you next time. Thanks for listening.

Speaker 1: 26:00

To learn more, visit manorlawgroupcom.