Since the calendar is now into December, and we all have started to think about the past year and are starting to plan for 2021, we realize that planning for the upcoming year is needed and more complex than it has been.
How can you fully sum up a whole year that was marked by a large pandemic like Covid-19, a presidential election, racial justice protests, along with other upheavals and changes? What type of lesson can be taken into 2021, considering that the pandemic showed how unpredictable things can be.
We hope that these quotes from senior living providers can provide you with a starting point.
Beth Mace, the chief economist for NIC, stated, “I think that we are moving into a decade of disruption.”
However, no one was predicting that a global pandemic would hit and rock the industry, but senior living providers had been confronting disruptive forces starting in 2020.
However, at the start of the year, COvid-19 had added to things that had already being talked about at the start of 2020, including things like how to working closely with payers and health systems, how to create appealing products for newer generations, and how to leverage better technology.
Thomas DeRosa, CEO of Welltower, stated, “The future of senior housing is not what we have today.”
Although many senior living leaders predict chaos by early 2020, Welltower CEO Tom DeRosa is one of the most actively committed to changing the status quo by creating new models.
During his tenure, Welltower proposed a strategy to incorporate advanced housing into the nursing system through joint ventures and other partnerships with the health system and payers. For example, a real estate investment trust (REIT) provides more care to the elderly community through its partnership with Anthem branch CareMore, and at the same time, provides more care options for independent residents in the mid-market through its relationship with Geisinger. REIT is working with operating partners and technology companies such as Philips to create a technologically advanced community.
DeRosa’s exit from Welltower in October will eventually become one of the unpredictable changes in the industry in 2020. However, Shankh Mitra has stated that the strategic REIT direction, along with the pandemic, has provided a basis for finding new methods of care. Advanced housing settings at different price points.
According to Dr. Bill Thomas, founder of Minka House and Community Greenhouse Eden Alternative, “After flipping the game board, you have to reset the chess pieces. In the next three to five years, this will be where the elderly live; they just want to figure out how to arrange the game, with new assumptions, new players, new To build a new game.”
The first article on the coronavirus was published in late February. ALG Senior Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Kevin O’Neil, warned that-if the threat is fully realized, “the consequences could be devastating.” About a month later, while communities across the United States were under lockdown, senior care innovator Bill Thomas spoke freely about the impact of Covid-19 on the industry.
In the early stages, medical service providers across the country are scrambling to formulate new operating procedures, fighting fear and uncertainty among residents and employees, and trying to deal with the devastating effects of the Covid-19 outbreak. However, Thomas firmly believes that high-quality senior living and care providers will soon learn how to protect their buildings and protect the elderly to the greatest extent possible from the disease.
When it comes to this prediction, he was right based on how low the infection rates were that had been reported publicly and through REITs. However, only time will tell if he was right about the chessboard in the industry is going to be reset over the next few years.
In his prediction: due to seeing the risks taken by them during the Covid-19 period and the relatively low salary and prestige they received, the job description of senior employees will change; The pace will accelerate, and the density of public life patterns will decrease; the “leisure lifestyle” vision of the elderly will disappear, and the focus will be on health and wellness to achieve more balanced services.
Larry Kutscher, CEO of A Place For Mom, stated, “We did not convey this message at all. The industry is very quiet and is waiting for Covid to disappear.”
During the second month of the pandemic, there was a theme that had emerged. Senior housing providers did not get their stories out there, and they did not make themselves any different from skilled nursing centers.
This issue is as old as the privately paid premium life industry itself. The public does not understand the difference between traditional nursing homes and independent living, assisted living, and memory care communities. But in a pandemic, this chaos has had dire consequences. The news about the terrible situation and the high death toll in nursing homes is endless, and these stories fail to distinguish between different types of high-end housing.
At the same time, APFM’s Kutscher observed that elderly people who are in urgent need are not sure where to go, while senior life service providers are reluctant to spread the message that they have largely succeeded in securing residents and jobs. The personnel is safe and able to accept occupancy.
Others also responded to his concerns, including the leader of Bickford Senior Living. The medical institution headquartered in Olathe, Kansas, is an example of transparency. Since the beginning of the pandemic, every community of the institution has publicly released the number of Covid-19 infections. Trilogy Health Services also created a public-facing website that contains a large amount of Covid-19 data. The industry organization POSH was established to help resist negative news, and ASHA also launched a public relations campaign.
As a result, the industry is now a bit “quieter” than earlier this year, but there is still a long way to go to praise its success in ensuring the safety of residents-let consumers understand that privately paid senior living and nursing homes are A more difficult task. Working towards this goal will certainly take over suppliers during 2021 and on into the future, but taking the time to embrace full transparency is going to be a promising first step. This means staying in touch with the media more proactively, sharing more information (including information on pricing) on the company’s website, and spending more effectively on social media and other platforms where information is increasingly sought. The interaction.
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