By Steve Moran
It finally hit me this morning as I was thinking about senior living and the Wall Street Journal boldly and wrongly proclaiming that senior living is on the verge of running out of vacant units.
This might be the single best way for a large company like Brookdale, Discovery, Sunrise, Watermark, Holiday, Atria, LCS, or one of the mid-tier senior living companies to fill every community, deliver leads to competitors, and create amazing margins.
The Idea: Quit Being a Senior Living Company
I am not suggesting getting out of senior living — exactly the opposite. I am suggesting that they expand their services to be the place people go, as they grow older, to figure out how to live amazing, wonderful last-chapter lives.
I know — I am living it — growing older in the United States is extraordinarily complicated.
- Figuring out health care
- Managing health care
- What kind of insurance
- When to retire
- How to get signed up for Medicare
- How and when to start collecting Social Security benefits
- How to maximize investments
- Finding new friends
- Where to live
- What are the right vacations
A lot of these things are being done by AARP, but they are not a very transparent organization, so one is never really sure they are offering the best deals for older people. I worry, and I suspect others worry about the same thing.
Imagine
Imagine being the trusted “go-to” source for all things growing older — a source I could trust to point me in the right direction, even if it is not senior living for now, or forever. As the trusted source for all things aging, it would matter less, or maybe matter not at all, because there would be a path to revenue no matter what people needed.
Imagine for a moment that some senior living community company (I don’t know, Brookdale, Atria, Sunrise, Hawthorne, Holiday, Watermark — the list goes on and on) decided that they were not going to be just a senior living company but were going to be an aging services company.
The idea would be that, as people grow older, they have a single source they can go to to figure out how to create the best possible life for themselves. So it would include financial planning; could include vacations; could include lifelong learning; could include insurance, Medicare Advantage programs. It could include encore careers — just goes on and on and on. Maybe you start by stealing the list of things that AARP does.
You might argue that that’s what AARP does, except that AARP has this huge bias against senior living, number one, and number two, AARP seems to be more about making money than they do about really helping older people. So for instance, they’ll endorse things, they’ll take things on that are not necessarily all that good for older people if there’s a buck in it. And if you’re really going to do this, there’s really got to be a company that’s focused on serving the needs of older people, and it also means you’ve got to serve both well-off people and not-so-well-off people.
This is good, Steve! Can we connect to expand this ahead of NIC?
I think we can except you show up as Anonymous so I have no way to follow-up
Great insight. Break the age stigma by ending age restrictions. What’s now senior living can be better living for all. Of course, there can be neighborhoods — as there are in the real world — and, of course, there can be age-related services available on site — as there are now in the age-tainted world — but it’s time to take the ageism out of “senior” living to make it better living. It’s not only time. It’s way past time.
Terrible idea. These companies are profit driven and never have enough staff. And you think you can trust them?
This is an unfair response.
1. Nothing wrong with making a profit. Even not-for-profits much have a margin to stay in business.
2. The path to high profits is high quality.
3. I don’t care what the business, is but there are always a handful of bad players.
4. It is super easy to be critical, but how about offering a better solution for older people to age, find care and combat isolation and loneliness for a reasonable cost.
Steve, this is what Senior Advisors (local placement agents) have done for decades and the very reason local agencies thrive today.
And it is my favorite choice
I so agree with you! Being a Boomer and working in this field, people want ease of navigation. Re-inventing ourselves to be the “expert” in key areas of aging beyond just healthcare and housing, positions operators to reach many more potential customers. We want to make sure we are seen as “collaborators” not competitors with local government agencies for seniors,and develop those strategic partnerships.
I agree with most of this. Some challenges:
1. A lot of local agencies have a very negative perception of senior living so we are starting in at a deficit.
2. I which senior living organizations were actually a lot more competitive. I think we play too nice together which sounds lovely, but in reality leads to complacency. Imagine a whole bunch of senior living organizations in a given marketplace competing to be the very best, to be better than the community down the street or around the block. They would all be better and they would all be full.
I agree. This is a great idea. As we work with families and businesses in my company, I offer this type of service to help the Senior or their POA navigate the resources from insurance, placement, aging in place, navigating the healthcare maze, etc. With our model, we could help Senior Living communities provide these services as we have built a network of insurance agents, financial and wealth management experts and elder law attorneys. Our goal is to be the place where they can get Information, Education, Guidance and Referrals to ensure we are meeting their needs and wishes for the journey of aging. In addition, we offer help in navigating the Dementia and Alzheimer’s journey that many families are facing including myself with my Mom.