Tips to Help a Struggling Senior Evaluate Assisted Living Pricing

Is your aging parent or senior neighbor struggling?  What should you do?  Is it really supportive to buy them groceries and watch them struggle to stay home?  Is it more caring to help them evaluate assisted living options, so they can thrive again?  Learn assisted living pricing tips from an author and senior living expert.

Diane Masson has helped thousands of seniors make educated decisions by planning ahead and gives great tips for adult children whose parents are in crisis mode.  “Your Senior Housing Options,” can answer all your questions and empower you to help any struggling senior over the holidays.  Find out if staying home with care or assisted living costs more in the long-term.

Video Interview with a Senior Living Expert

Learn free tips and advice from a senior living expert who has walked the journey with thousands of seniors in four states.  Diane Masson’s professional and personal senior living experience includes:

  • Identifying the important considerations of staying home versus moving to a retirement community.
  • Helping her own mom plan ahead and move to a Continuing Care Retirement Community, before she had dementia.
  • Supporting her in-laws when they were simultaneously in hospitals and had to be put into different facilities (assisted living and skilled nursing).

More free tips about marketing senior living are available through the marketing 2 seniors blog.  Diane Masson has authored two books about senior living: Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full for professionals and Your Senior Housing Options for seniors who want to plan ahead or  family members scrambling when a parent is in crisis mode.

Tips for Positive PR in Senior Living and Alzheimer’s Wins

Tips for Positive PR in Senior Living and Alzheimer’s Wins

Freedom Village Residents and Staff Walking at Alzheimer's OC in Laguna Niguel.

Freedom Village Residents and Staff Walking at Alzheimer’s OC in Laguna Niguel.

Here are some simple tips to create positive Public Relations for your senior living community by supporting your local Alzheimer’s Walk.

First, Freedom Village in Lake Forest, California  brainstormed on how to raise money for the Alzheimer’s OC Walk by involving residents and staff.

Second, Freedom Village had two fundraisers:

  1. A staff talent show for the residents.  The Human Resources Director organized the the talent show and the Activity Director invited the residents.  The admission ticket was any donation to Alzheimer’s.   Both the dress rehearsal at the all staff meeting and the main show for the residents were full houses.
  2. The Sunshine Group at Freedom Village had been making adult coloring placemats for skilled nursing resident’s food trays.  Select drawings were shrunk down, shellacked onto tiles and sold in four packs with stickers notating the resident artist.

Third, residents, staff and a Girl Scout troop proudly arrived at the walk wearing “Freedom to Thrive” T-shirts.

PR results of Freedom Village participating in the Alzheimer’s OC Walk in Laguna Niguel:

  1. Raising $4,620 and becoming the top fundraising team.
  2. Winning the Spirit Award!
  3. Being featured on the front page of two local newspapers: Aliso Viejo and Laguna Niguel.
  4. The Community Relations Director was interviewed on local TV discussing the walk.

This is a simple recipe for PR success, but it took a lot of teamwork.  This project was overseen by a very creative community relations director, Stephanie Riggs.

What are your ideas?

More free tips about marketing senior living are available through the marketing 2 seniors blog.  Diane Masson has authored two books about senior living: Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full for professionals and Your Senior Housing Options for seniors who want to plan ahead and family members scrambling in crisis mode.

Video Interview: Learn Senior Housing Answers

Video Interview: Learn Senior Housing Answers

your-senior-housing-options-coverThis video will explain the three levels of care in senior housing.  It identifies health requirements to move into an independent retirement community.  Learn what happens if a senior or couple qualify to move into a retirement community, then change their mind(s).  Can the senior or couple still qualify one year later if their health worsens?  When does a senior with memory loss or dementia bypass their opportunity to move into an independent setting at a retirement community?  These are expert answers by award winning author Diane Masson.  She has written two books about senior housing: “Your Senior Housing Options” for seniors and “Senior Housing Marketing” for professionals.

Diane Masson is the regional marketing director of two Continuing Care Retirement Communities in Southern California, Freedom Village in Lake Forest and The Village in Hemet. Connect with her at tips2seniors.com

Award Winning Book for Seniors

Award Winning Book for Seniors

Award Winning Senior bookYour Senior Housing Options Wins Award in 2016 National Mature Media Awards.

Your Senior Housing Options book was a winner in the 25th annual National Mature Media Awards Program. The program, presented by the Mature Market Resource Center, a national clearinghouse for the senior market, recognizes the nation’s best marketing, communications, educational materials, and programs designed and produced for older adults.
your-senior-housing-options-coverYour Senior Housing Options
written by Diane Masson received an award for the Book Category. Those involved with the design and production of “Your Senior Housing Options,” are author Diane Twohy Masson and illustrator Steve Hartley. Editors included Kim E. Kimmy, Jeannette Acheson, Suzanne Kaye, Stefan Moses, and Joyce Ball.

“We were delighted to take part in the Mature Media Awards Program this year, and were honored to be selected as a winner,” says Diane Twohy Masson. The book was written to help seniors and adult children understand future housing needs, options and costs. Masson has worked in senior housing for 18 years and helped thousands of seniors plan ahead. She has also witnessed the negative consequences and costs of procrastinating until a crisis through her in-laws and other seniors in denial of needing future care.

The entries were judged by a distinguished panel of mature market experts from across the United States for overall excellence of design, content, creativity and relevance to the senior market.