The Conversation Families Avoid with Chris Foran of CarePatrol of Vermont — Full Episode Transcript

Hello and welcome back to another episode of LT CareNav's Care Compass. Today we are here with Chris Foran from CarePatrol of Vermont. And when I say Vermont, I mean all of Vermont. So everyone in Vermont listening, he's got you covered from coast to coast, border to border. Welcome, Chris.

Thanks for having me, Lindsay. Appreciate the time.

We were so excited to have you here, especially since you are the state's best resource. So to start, I always like to ask: who are you, what do you do, and why do you do it?

Thanks again, Lindsay. Happy to be here. My name is Chris Foran with CarePatrol of Vermont, and I'm a certified senior advisor. What brought me to this business was actually a personal experience. I had spent over 20 years in technology startups and was looking for a change, and we were going through a life transition with my wife's parents here in Vermont. I witnessed all of the different stages and steps that are involved in that — not just moving them into assisted living — and I watched the whole process and just said, there has to be a better way to help families through this.

At the time I met the co-founders of CarePatrol, started talking to them, fell in love with the business model and the people and the support system — and yeah, it all came down to a personal experience.

And I think that's where a lot of owners and a lot of people in this ecosystem of caring for seniors come from, and I love that. So you had this personal experience. Why do you think so many families fall victim to this uncertainty and uncharted waters?

Mostly because we're not prepared for it. You don't learn this at any real stage of life until it's thrust upon you. I don't know that lots of families talk about this type of process and the next stages of life for their senior loved ones — it's just not something that gets talked about very much. I hate to say it, but we almost ignore the subject until we're not allowed to ignore it anymore.

I often wonder — do people ignore it, or are they just caught so off guard? If you think about it, our grandparents and great-grandparents didn't live long enough to ever hit these milestones. Do you think it really is harder to talk about, or is it that people just aren't aware until they live it?

I think it's more about awareness until they live it. It is a hard subject to talk about, especially with the older generations. I'm finding that conversation is getting easier with the baby boomers starting to move up in age — they seem a little bit more accepting of it. But it's a hard conversation for families to have. And especially here in Vermont — people are proud Vermonters, homesteaders, and they would literally love to just stay in their home as long as possible. There's a pride piece of it here for sure.

I've not been to Vermont — I hear it's absolutely beautiful. But as a state, since you are covering all of it: what do the communities look like? You said people want to stay in their homes as long as possible, but is Vermont an easy place to age in place?

Depending on who you ask, we are one of the oldest states in the country per capita, and I believe the second least populated state, with just under 650,000 residents. We're a very rural state. Geographically there are people who live way out in remote areas or in different rural communities, and those people do struggle to have access or find access to resources. We have several Area Agencies on Aging and lots of different resources available, but if somebody's living in a remote area, it's tougher — not just physically to get there, but to find resources that are local to them.

I'd imagine it's also harder to find home care and to get people to actually come care in the home.

It is harder, for sure. The home health agencies we work with are constantly growing because there is a need, and they're constantly trying to hire. It's a very difficult thing to hire for, especially in remote areas — finding caregivers who may be an hour away from the client's home is a long commute. So that's definitely a challenge.

So when families come in and say, mom lives in the middle of some big plot of land with no neighbors to check on her, and mom says, I'm not going anywhere, and the family says, well, this isn't safe — how do you have that conversation? How do we approach it with mom, to let her know there are other options, and that the picture in her head of being put in a home is not what it actually looks like?

That last piece is the biggest barrier. Certainly with my own dad and older folks I talk to, they think of their great-grandma or great-grandfather who was in a nursing home toward the end of their lives, and that's the picture they have in their head. So that's often why I talk to families about doing an in-person tour to show them some options, even if they're not ready yet — or I can do remote options. I've shot videos of the different communities we work with and shared those with seniors I'm working with. That helps alleviate a little bit of the stress and stigma that goes along with moving out of your forever home, that you may have been in for fifty-plus years.

That's neat — you actually do video tours with them. I'm imagining some of these people live quite a distance from where they might end up being placed, just because of the way the land is laid out. Is that accurate?

That's accurate. And I do it often for out-of-state family members who can't necessarily come — if somebody's living in California or Oregon and can't come here physically for a tour, I can video it and show it to the kids, allow them to virtually view things, and then we can set up a separate trip when they come here.

That's really nice — what a way to narrow it down, and that you're willing to take that extra step. In general, I always believe you need a local boots-on-the-ground advisor. You need to talk to someone like yourself who really knows the communities and knows what Vermont looks like — there are a lot of places you might get in touch with that really don't. But you're covering a wide area. What can families expect when working with you that's different from other options they might find online?

First, I do agree the boots-on-the-ground strategy is best, because I'm in the communities. Even if I'm two and a half to three hours down south in a community in Ludlow, Vermont, for example — I know the difference between Ludlow and Burlington and how far it is to drive from one to the other, based on where a family member may live or where their friends are. I know the geography of the state very well, and the locations and available options for senior care and senior living, be it home health, assisted living, or memory care. Just being here, embedded in the community — I've been in Vermont for almost 30 years now — that local knowledge really helps versus an online aggregation type of tool.

When families come to you — mom's at home, she's really having a hard time — what does that conversation look like to get families comfortable? It sounds like some of these homes are more distant. How do you adjust for, this one might be closer to you, but this is a better option?

We try to take a very holistic view of the person we're talking to — the senior loved one, but also their family. We try to understand things like what did they do for work when they were working? What are their hobbies? Are they a gardener? Are they a birder? Because some communities offer different things in terms of landscaping and outdoor spaces. So we try to understand all of that.

And we also review the care and violation history of all the communities we work with, so we're not recommending communities that may not be appropriate. We're lucky here in Vermont that there's actually a website where you can search the different communities and it shows the care and violation history. I incorporate that into my research and recommendations.

When it comes to care, what levels of care are there? Can you start at independent living, start earlier? And are you better off coming to the process earlier so you can stay in a place longer?

Good question. Here in Vermont we have independent living, assisted living, memory care, and home health services, and some communities offer all three levels of care. So you can start independent and then move as your care needs require — into assisted living, and then memory care if there's dementia or Alzheimer's. There are a lot of different options, but we have to understand what the care needs are today and what they may be in the not-too-distant future, so we can make sure we're in a community that somebody can not only grow with as their needs progress, but grow with as a resident — somebody living there amongst their now friends and acquaintances.

When you talk about independent living, what I find — and I wonder if you're seeing the same thing — is that people wait too long. They don't realize these are not just for care needs; these are lifestyles and communities and ways of living that could actually help you thrive longer. Are you finding the same thing? For somebody teeter-tottering on the idea, is there ever too early?

I think it's never too early to start the process, but absolutely, people wait too long. 60% of our phone calls are emergencies — somebody has fallen, broken a hip, they're now in skilled nursing after being in the hospital, and they can't go home safely right now because they have too many stairs or there are access issues in their home. We jump right into real firefighting mode.

So what I try to do with families is, let's get out in front of it, let's talk about the options, and at least have a semblance of a plan in place, so that if something should happen, we can be prepared for it — versus reacting to it, which becomes stressful and emotional for everybody involved.

So 60% of your families are emergencies. What happens in those situations versus a family that has planned? What do those two scenarios look like?

It's kind of like fire drills in a building. That's really the best analogy I can think of. When you plan those drills and you drill them over and over again — they're not fun, obviously — but then everybody knows what they're supposed to do, so people can come together. Versus somebody getting a phone call who may live out of state: mom fell and she's now in the hospital, and the family has to immediately make travel plans to come back to Vermont and start working through all the processes. If they haven't lived here in a long time, or since they moved away as kids, you're really starting on your back foot. I try to get out in front of that whole process with them, because it makes everything a lot more stressful otherwise — and it makes people make decisions sometimes too quickly.

And with that — at least in Ohio we have this — are there situations where here's a place you really want to be, you're making a decision quickly, and now that's not even an option because there's a wait time? Are you running into those things?

We are. Especially in Vermont, waitlists are a very common thing, and waitlists can vary in length. We run into that quite a bit — if somebody has a particular community in mind, maybe they have a friend there they want to visit, we definitely have to take the waiting lists into account.

What does an average waitlist look like? Say somebody's planning for their mom and it's two years off — is two years too long to come and have the conversation, to say, this is where my mom's gonna want to go, Chris?

Typically our waitlists are measured in months, not years. I always say, if you can take the time and start looking at communities and touring now versus waiting, that's always a good thing. You don't have to commit to anything — you don't even have to get on the waiting list at that particular time if you don't want to, and you don't have to put any money down. That's definitely advice I give families: let's go have a look and see what the options are. And if the community you really like is not available for some reason, we might have another option that is just as suitable, or even more suitable.

I always joke — and you're gonna laugh — I actually have picked out my assisted living. I'm being dead serious. I have one, and I very much want this to be where I end up. In our planning I've told my husband, you're most likely gonna kick the bucket before me — you're a little older and you make bad choices — so this is where I want to go, and we have to plan for me being there, because it's super lovely. You can never plan early enough.

I have about four of them myself, Lindsay. People ask me frequently, what's your favorite? And they're like children — they're kind of all my favorites. I do have some personal favorites, just for the record, but they all offer wonderful options, and it just depends on the individual, their needs, and their interests.

Mine is very much about wanting to sit on a front porch — it has these beautiful pretend front porches inside the building with all these little rocking chairs. But for families, what should be the number one thing — other than I like the rocking chairs in the hallway — that you should take into consideration before making a choice?

I like to look at the big items. What does their staffing look like — staffing levels, residents to staff members? Does that change throughout the day, in the evening, or on weekends? I focus on that quite a bit when we're touring with families. Then other things like, let's go have lunch or dinner at the community, so you get a sense for the community itself but also the food, frankly. And really looking at the safety aspects — do they have a full-time nurse, a part-time nurse, somebody who comes in? Can you have home health come in on top of the services the community offers? There are a lot of components, but for me it starts with staffing and safety.

That's really smart stuff to look for. As we wrap up, what would you tell families who are just starting the process, and how do they reach out to you?

They can reach out at carepatrol.com/Vermont, or call our office — our main office number is 802-391-3989 — and we'd be happy to help. That's the easiest way to contact us: the website or give us a call.

Thank you so much, Chris, for joining us. To anyone in Vermont, reach out to Chris — it's never too early to start this process. You don't have to start as early as I am, but it's never too early. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Lindsay, and have a great rest of your day.

You too.