The senior care industry in entirely, indisputably, and definitively f*cked.

Over the next two issues of Drunk Business Advice, I’m going to lift the curtain on America's most shameful not-so-secret treatment of your grandparents, your parents, and—

You.

(If we continue to ignore this problem). 🤦 

✍️ Have you had a shameful experience with the senior care industry? Join the conversation on LinkedIn.

My heart dropped to the floor

It began with a strange text message from my husband’s aunt:

“Can you have Bren call me? I’m concerned about Judy.”

Bren is my husband, and Judy is his mother.

At the time, Judy was an active, independent, and generally healthy 76-year-old who had been living on her own since my husband’s father passed away a decade earlier.

She was sharp-witted, funny, and always had a packed social calendar.

But when she called her sister to complain about all of her demanding houseguests —worrying about how she was going to feed them all— we knew something was very wrong.

She didn’t have any houseguests. 😔

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The following six months were torture.

Watching a parent devolve into dementia is horrifying, of course. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

But to add insult to injury, this experience revealed the absolutely shameful practices of the senior care industry.

This is a national crisis that no one seems to be talking about—

The second-largest generation in American history is about to enter a calamitous system that is not only NOT ready for them — it doesn’t seem to care.

An unsustainable situation  

At the onset, I became Judy’s primary caregiver.

Judy lived just outside of Philadelphia, and I live in New York City, so “primary caregiver” meant temporarily moving in with her.

I have never been so overwhelmed in my entire life. 😵‍💫

Between relentless work calls, I was:

• Working with her doctors on her medication and treatment plan.

• Helping her dress and groom.

• Preparing all of her meals.

• And doing everything I could to keep her distracted from the stressful hallucinations she was suffering from.

It wasn’t a sustainable situation, so I immediately set my sights on creating a long-term plan.

As a family, we decided it would be best to keep Judy at home, so I began interviewing agencies to find professional caregivers who could take over the work I was doing.

When we finally settled on an agency, it was because the weekday caregiver they were proposing was outstanding.

She was kind, patient, reliable, and she had an uncanny ability to step in when Judy needed help, and “disappear” when she wanted privacy. 🙏 

But the weekends were hell.  😣 

The agency rotated us through countless weekend caregivers, who butted heads with Judy, and were hopelessly unreliable. I found myself dashing out to Philly nonstop to handle Judy’s weekend care.

Again, we found ourselves in an unsustainable situation. 

It was time to move Judy into assisted living.

We thought we were lucky

I’m going to preface this entire story by saying that, as a family, we’re incredibly fortunate.

Before my husband’s father passed away, he set up Judy’s retirement investments to ensure that she would have a healthy income for life.

So our goal was to find the best assisted living community for her — not just a facility that we could afford.

(I couldn’t imagine enduring this process on a restricted income, or having to rely on public assistance — and my heart breaks for the people who are in that situation.)

I set out on the grand tour of all the top-rated assisted living communities in Philadelphia to find Judy a new home where she would receive both the care she needed — and the lifestyle she deserved.

But what I found was more incompetence (with a larger price tag) than any other industry I had ever encountered.

This experience made me dive deep into the $90 billion dollar assisted living industry, and I was shocked by what I discovered.

More red flags than a Communist rally

Many of the facilities we considered threw up immediate red flags:

🚩 Salespeople weren’t returning calls, or getting back to me with vital information they promised to provide. (If a salesperson isn’t even communicating with you, there’s zero chance of anyone picking up the phone once they’re deducting rent from your bank account).

🚩 I was being shown beautiful “demo units”, but when I would insist on seeing actual units, they were small, dark, dirty, and one even smelled like sewage. 🤢

🚩 Staff members were glued to their phones and acting like our mere existence was a huge inconvenience to them.

🚩 And not a single facility offered any kind of communication platform or process for family members to stay updated on their loved ones’ care after they moved in.

The fourth red flag was what concerned me the most — mainly because it was consistent across every single facility I visited.

In a world where my doggy daycare sends me:

• Multiple photos

• Meal and medication documentation

• And even activity reports

…how is possible that the caregiving facilities that we’re trusting with the lives of our parents are this f*cking opaque?!

And remember — I was visiting the TOP RATED and MOST EXPENSIVE assisted living facilities, in one of the most affluent suburbs of Philadelphia.

I was absolutely stunned, both as an advocate for Judy, and as a business operator.

Imagine, if you will…

Imagine the Ritz-Carlton going rogue and delivering a Motel 6 experience while still charging Ritz-Carlton prices.

They’d lose all of their business, right? People would choose a different luxury hotel.

But that wasn’t what was happening here.

It was like the Ritz-Carlton teamed up with the Four Seasons, the St. Regis, and every other luxury hotel in America, and all decided to charge exorbitant prices for flaming piles of dogshit.

It was systemic. 

All of the facilities were facing enormous demand.

And since they were all the same general level of awful (masked by pretty architecture and flashy websites), they could just hike up the prices as much as they wanted, and people would be forced to pay them simply because there were no alternatives.

But even at that point, I could not have comprehended how dire the state of this industry actually was.

It’s one of those things you really have to experience from the inside, though I pray it’s an experience that none of you will ever have to endure.

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This was Part 1 of the story. Go read Part 2 here.

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Are you dealing with a loved one with dementia, or in assisted living? 

I’m here for you. ❤️

Reach out anytime for a chat or a drinking buddy. It’s f*cking brutal, and I’m so sorry.

Cheers! 🍻

-Kristin :-)

P.S. — Don’t forget to hop over to LinkedIn and tell me about your experience with the assisted living industry.

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