Barth Holohan with Continuum Care Management

Today we have Barth Holohan, the owner of Continuum Care Management

Can you please explain what a care manager does?

They can do everything that a family member would have the time to do but they bring the knowledge of a professional that either is in either social work or nursing. They bring that professional background to help, and so they basically can be the quarterback for anything going on with a loved one. I always give the example of if you had a loved one that was living at home. If you had a son and a daughter that were caring for their mom, and they were out of town or they were professionals or they’re raising their family and they needed someone to kind of be the quarterback for the care that she needed that’s what I manager can do. They can help with appointments, go to doctor’s appointments, and they can help with figuring out long term care insurance. Everything that a family member might take hours to do and figure out, because the care manager has that experience, they’re able to do it very quickly.

Who can benefit from a care manager?

A family member that is out of town and needs someone to be the caregiver for their mom or dad. Our care managers can do assessments on the front end. A family member may call our home care company and say, “My mom needs home care, but she’s confused. We don’t know if she is going to stay in her home for a long period of time, or she’s going to go to a higher level of care. We don’t really know what to do.” They think that private duty is the solution to the problem, but they might be solving the wrong problem. So a Care Manager can come in do a full assessment, and do a mini mental assessment for mental cognitive abilities. They look at all the things you would want to look at when you’re trying to figure out what to do for mom, dad, or spouse. They are able to provide the framework to make sure that you’re getting the best care for their situation.

How can Continuum Care Management help?

Care Managers are professionals in the industry or social workers. We do have those care managers, but we also have a nursing side of it. I think what that is what differentiates us. We are able to add a clinical oversight that a lot of people aren’t able to give. Most people that are needing care at their home or in their retirement community need clinical help. If a client that doesn’t have family or friends to help, we can even become a health care power attorney.