Have you noticed...

• disruption of the family?

• medication non-compliance?

• decrease in mobility?

• feelings of being overwhelmed?

• social isolation, depression, anxiety, or other health issues?

• questionable financial decisions?

Who are we?

Advocare Solutions is a comprehensive geriatric care
management service, founded by Sondra Teer Robertson, RN. of Wilmington. For the past twenty years she has nursed and provided specialized care management to many chronically and terminally ill patients in our community. In 1999, she was accredited in Parrish Nursing by the Medical University of South Carolina. Mrs. Roberston has served on numberous Boards in the local community, along them the New Hanover Regional Medical Center's Board of Trustees and the Lower Cape Fear Hospice.

Caring for and nurturing others has been the guiding principle of her personal life and profes- sional career.

Advocare Solutions is com- mitted to maximizing the independence and autonomy of frail elders while striving to ensure that the highest quality and most cost-effective health and human services are used when and where appropriate.

Advocare Solutions and its ancillary team of practitioners have a common goal in the advancement of gentle and dignified care for the elderly and their families.

Through education, advocacy, counseling and the delivery of concrete services, Advocare Solutions assists older persons and their families to cope with challenges of aging.

There are times in all of our lives when we or those we love suddenly find ourselves facing life changing events or a diagnosis that will alter our daily lives, whether for a short time or longer. Knowing where to turn for help can often bring a sense of confidence and peace, whether it be for information on available resources or simply having someone to help us organize the new services needed.

HOME CARE MANAGEMENT AND THE PROFESSIONAL RESOURCE MANAGER

Q: What exactly is Home Care Management?
A: Home Care Management is a combination of long term care planning, protection, prevention, preservation, and chronic care services. These services are delivered over time and are affordable to most home care clients and their families.

Q: What is the role of a Care Manager?
A: Our goal as a Care Manager is most often to help you – the physicians, the attorneys, the financial managers and strategists – achieve your goals of maintaining your client’s health and independence, while preserving their assets and their opportunity to choose.

Q: How do Financial and Legal Professionals fit into the picture?
A: To garner the resources for Home Care Management, clients need the help of a care-planning specialist who can interpret a client’s care needs for his or her resource manager (financial and/or legal), and then orchestrate a CARE PLAN in collaboration with the Home Care Team. With the right resources in place, the chronic care services that secure a client’s well being at home are often affordable.
A family member of a chronically ill or disabled individual may need help understanding how legal documents, correctly written by a specialized “elder-law” or disability attorney, can help them achieve and retain their independence, or how a Financial Planner could advise their loved ones of the most beneficial use of their assets. Many have family members who can be brought into the process of interpreting how better management of all resources can enhance and assure their care options. This includes home care service management, budgeting, financial planning, estate planning, and insurance analysis.

Q: What is “chronic care?”
A: Unfortunately, the term “medical necessity” is at the heart of our insurance-subsidized, outcome-measured, cost-contained, treatment-efficient health care system. This system was not designed to treat illnesses that do not go away. Medical necessity justifies medical treatment. But when treatment and the need for acute care ends, where does the client turn for long-term care and stability for “chronic” conditions? Chronic illness requires chronic care. Chronic care is the strategic use of personal, family, and community resources to prevent long-term institutional placement among the chronically ill.

Q: Who’s in charge?
A: It is the Care Manager’s job to coordinate the efforts of the family, friends, community and other professional advisors to facilitate the team approach to Long Term Care planning by serving as interpreter among all of the team’s elements.

Q: What’s the Long Term Care plan?
A: The plan is three-fold:
1. The Assessment- A thorough plotting of the client’s condition, goals,
long-term care resources, income and assets, insurance, and family care are but a few.
2. The Care Plan- A detailed description of the options available to the client,
family and other team members. This will include daily personal care assistance,
accessibility modifications, homemaking issues, companionship, and supervision.
3. Care Management- The actual implementation of the Care Plan,
with ongoing reassessment.

THE VALUE OF A CARE MANAGER IS FOUND IN WHAT DOESN’T HAPPEN
AS A RESULT OF THEIR SERVICES.