Benefits of Using a Senior Living Advisor to Find the Right Care Home
There are many care homes out there. Some may already exist within your neighborhood that you might drive by every day without even noticing. The proper definition of a care home or board and care, is a residential home that consists of 6 residents and 24 hour care giving on site. Some of the rooms within the care home are shared female or male rooms, and single resident rooms. Care Homes, are for residents with all levels of care. At Happy Heart Senior Living Advisors, we usually suggest that when your loved one is in a state where they can no longer live alone or take care of themselves properly, a care home is the right fit for them. It is a rather intimate environment for them to feel as if they are right at home.
Consider care homes as the Mom and Pa type of residents for assisted living. Each owner of these homes is different than the other. Some care homes may appear monumental and in a highly desirable area, while others might look like any other residence yet lively with their activities and family engagement. Each care home can be the perfect fit for your loved one and what they might need. Through our experience at Happy Heart Senior Living Advisors, we have seen care homes that are owned and operated by all sorts of compassionate, caring and experienced owners. We have seen care homes that we are not sure if they are really operating as a board and care or something else. Whatever your loved ones needs are our placement specialist at Happy Heart Senior Living Advisors, find the right home for their personality, care needs and geographic location. We have scoped out the good, bad and ugly of care homes and won’t waste your time. It can be time consuming trying to find availability in a quality care home. If the care home is a quality care home, they are successful at increasing the longevity and health of your loved one, they care. We make sure that these care homes are researched with various sites to ensure these homes are properly complying with state regulations. Touring the homes and meeting the staff to know what is acceptable or not to send their clients to. Let’s put it this way the founder of Happy Heart Senior Living Advisors, usually goes with the motto, “where would she feel comfortable placing her own loved one.” Based on this ideology, your senior living advisor will help you find the right care home for your loved one.
Cost of Living adjustments for Vets in 2025
In order to keep up with inflation starting in 2025 veterans will receive a 2.5% Cost- of- Living Adjustment (COLA) increase on their disability benefits. This means their monthly payments will be 2.5% higher compared to 2024. This will offset inflation and maintain purchasing power of their benefits. This increase will align with the Social Security Administration's annual COLA adjustment.
Here are some key points to take away with the 2025 Veteran COLA:
- Increase percentage: 2.5%
- Reason for increase: Keep up with inflation
- Date in effect: December 1, 2024
What are the Benefits of Assisted Living?
Support with Daily Activities: Assisted living facilities provide help with activities of daily living (ADLs) such as bathing, dressing, medication management, and meal preparation, which can enhance seniors' quality of life.
Social Interaction: These communities often foster social engagement through group activities, events, and communal dining, helping to reduce feelings of loneliness and isolation.
Safety and Security: Assisted living facilities typically have safety features like emergency call systems, secure entrances, and staff available around the clock, providing peace of mind for both seniors and their families.
Access to Healthcare: Many assisted living facilities have connections to healthcare providers and can coordinate medical services, which is beneficial for seniors with chronic conditions or those needing regular medical attention.
Maintenance-Free Living: Residents don’t have to worry about home maintenance, housekeeping, or yard work, allowing them to focus on enjoying their time.
Beware of Transactional Placement Agents……
Beware of Those Transactional Placement Agents & Open Your Heart Towards Working With Compassionate Ones!
A majority of our first time calls are from clients who are in a panic. The family member just left the doctor’s office or received a call from Adult Protective Services and was told their loved one can no longer live by themselves. Often faced with the anxiety of what to do, where to go, and how and where do I start. Rushing to find a solution, they head to the internet and type in: independent, assisted living communities, board and care/memory care and press enter.
Immediately a list of options pops up mentioning lots of larger corporate placement agency names. Clicking on one of those options you fill out the information requested and automatically your phone rings from an outsourced customer service agent. The agent interrogates you with questions about your loved one. Almost as if you are speaking to a robot. You answer these questions and then you are linked to a local placement specialist. Still going through all the raw emotions, you are connected with another individual who is plugging you for more information. Yet, during this process, no one seems to compassionately ask you, how are you doing?
Larger corporations don't deal with feelings, they take your data, process it, and then try to find a solution. This is a vulnerable time for you and your family. You NEED someone, who is there listening to what you want, knowing the personality of your family member from all your explanations, and whose holding your hand on the other line. Someone who is experienced in this area and is willing to meet you in person, tour with you, maybe drive you there, line up your tours, take care of the phone calls, ask the right questions, help you find more homes when you don't think you found the right one, work with your budget, negotiate rates and most of all is free. You need someone who is willing to pound the pavement, pick up the phone when you needed a moment to let it all out, and simply hold your hand through the process. Someone basically who is organized to help you navigate through this unchartered territory. A person to make this difficult path as easy and painless as possible. Enabling you to make a decision that both you and your family feel comfortable with.
Sometimes we are blindsided by the fact that when looking online these larger corporation placement agents have amazing reviews. What we don't realize is that most of these ratings are paid and perfectly optimized by online marketing experts. Their expertise is what introduced you and your search inquiry to the larger corporation in the first place. Online marketing experts are so knowledgeable that they manipulated the authenticity of compassion and made the experience of finding a home for your loved one to be a quick transaction. These placement agents working for this larger corporation are expecting to meet a quota each month. Just like a doctor with a medical group is urged to keep his patient visits to a 15-minute maximum and move onto the next patient. Your vulnerable experience in trying to find a home for your loved one is too, find a place and move it along type of transaction for the company. There is no compassion, handholding, empathy towards your situation. No one there to simply listen. But after all, they are free.
Why choose a Mom-and-Pop senior placement agent versus a larger corporate one? These placement agents have no quota to meet. Happy Heart Senior Living Advisors LLC, was founded by a stay-at-home Mom that who through her own personal experience with a loved one decided she could compassionately do this as a career. As she was coached by her mentor from another placement agency, she and her husband decided to start their own business.
As a senior living advisor, Nikki Lovejoy, prides herself on listening and compassionately placing her clients into the RIGHT home. An empathetic person herself, she finds that this has led to her success. She says, "It's not that hard if you just care." Lovejoy, is also very transparent with her clients, making abundantly clear that she has no handshake deals with any specific facilities and there are no larger payouts for placing her clients at certain facilities. She makes her placement based on the best interest of the family. Once you have decided and move your family member into a facility, that is the time at which the placement agent gets compensated
Most larger corporations are known for being rather greedy and demanding higher payouts and bonuses from certain facilities. The facilities do not care to work with placement agents from larger corporations simply due to their lack of compassion for their clients. They also do feel that the client experience is very transactional. Happy Heart Senior Living Advisors LLC, has no hand shake deals and just places based on the best interest for the family. Finding the right home is the priority at hand and that is what they do. If interested, please contact us at Happy Heart Senior Living Advisors, LLC or check out our website at
Common Misconceptions about Senior Living Advisors…..
Under Construction
Myths
Senior Living Advisors will only show you the homes that pay them a commission
All Senior Living Advisors are the exact same
Senior Living Advisors will only show you the more costly homes because they get paid more for those
Senior Living Advisors don’t do any work and they are just a “middle-man".
Reality
We at Happy Heart look at all available options that would be best for you and your loved ones regardless of the commission or no commission structure
We at Happy Heart pride ourselves on our family and care based approach. We treat each client as if they were one of our family members. We go the extra mile as well in regards to research in taking a hand holding and guidance approach. This is what sets us apart from the larger more transactional Living Advisor companies
As noted above we pride ourselves in being ethical and our main focus is getting you or your loved one into the best living situation based on your care needs. We here at Happy Heart do not have any hand shake relationships with specific facilities. Our recommendations are based on our in depth research and solely focused on you or your loved ones asks and needs in regard to a home
At Happy Heart this is not true as we do very in depth research on homes before any recommendations are made. We take hours to understand each families needs and then extensively research homes that would best fit those needs. We answer questions, offer support and even help families with touring specific facilities.