It is our pleasure this week to introduce Joni Seivert as our guest blogger. Joni specializes in home care options, products, professionals, and placement in assisted living and nursing homes. Joni founded Connections Unlimited, LLC, a preferred provider network of the best in the greater Denver Metro area., to help families look at the needs of their loved ones as they age and help them through the maze of possible options and choices. We work with Joni a lot as we interact with customers who need not only products, but help figuring out what to do next when illness, injury or the impact of the aging process calls upon families to provide care for the people they love and nurture. Because Joni has spent the last 18 years connecting professionals of all kinds in the Metro area, families have choice and the relief of knowing there is a whole network to support them. I often suggest to people that if they could do as much planning for their retirement and old age as they do for a wedding or a vacation, they could have a much better quality of life! Look at it as an adventure and explore your options. Anything is possible today. One of the statistics that gets people’s attention is to mention that you could spend more time caring for your aging parents than you did raising your kids! It’s 19.5 years for your helping your aging parents and 18.3 years for your kids. That is if they do graduate and leave home and never have to move back in.
Begin to wrap your arms around the amount of time we could be dealing with the many options in services, products, professionals and long term care facilities that exist in our community. As we learn from helping our parents, we can get inspired for ourselves. Boomers will age and the sooner you get excited and embrace it the better your life can be. We are living on the average twenty years longer due to better health habits and medical technology and I’m here to help you by asking the right questions. Then, I give you your options so you and your family can make an educated decision.
We have a term called “aging in place” that refers to where we want to be to do our aging and that can accommodate our needs as we do so. Most people want to do that at home and we can keep people in their homes 3-5 years longer today, if they have the resources to pay for it because of the wonderful in-home care provider companies and retail products and adaptive equipment that help us upgrade our home to the safest environment possible.
One of the important themes that I ask you to consider is to imagine yourself developing a relationship with your providers. You want to make sure that you get the right match in caregivers and that you can get the same two scheduled consistently and grow your hours as your needs increase. Everyone is concerned about having strangers come into their homes so make sure you make a list of all the questions in your mind.
Remember you could be working with them for a long time.
• Find those who are in the business for the right reason.
• Have a conversation with them.
• Ask to hear their story of how they got into this business.
• Find out how long they have been in business.
• Be sure that they have a track record and can provide good references.
• Check on how much they value and strive to provide good customer service.
• Make sure they deliver what they say they will-consistently.
• At a competitive price.
• Who are they affiliated with? Have they earned the merit of belonging to any associations, networks, or the BBB?
You can reach Joni at jonisconnections.com and at 303-232-3359 for a free telephone consultation. Thanks Joni!
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