The Counterintuitive Truth about Concierge Care

In some circles, concierge care is considered a pricey luxury. However, concierge senior care actually reduces costs—a counterintuitive truth worth highlighting. Even big players like Optum’s Landmark Health and Welbe Health recognize its benefits: better outcomes and lower costs. When behemoths invest in a model, it’s worth noting. The bottom line: Concierge care isn’t a luxury; it’s a necessity in senior care, resulting in significant savings and fewer hospital visits.

Power of Teamwork

To better understand how a personalized service can save money, let’s dive into this model on a large scale. Giant players, like the ones mentioned, join with health plans to manage cost and quality from one place, as a partnership. Care delivery happens in one integrated system covering a variety of clinical functions without leaving home. For example, nursing assesses a patient is on 14 different medications and consults with the team physician and pharmacist. As a team, they reconcile these medications and can often cut prescriptions, and its cost, drastically.

On the “Creating a New Healthcare” podcast, Dr. Michael Le, formerly of Landmark Health, discusses this innovative approach—one I’ve revisited in this episode countless times for its ideal vision of senior care at home. Why is this issue of elder care so important to to healthcare leaders? Dr. Le explains, “There are so many frail seniors in our country who get poorer outcomes because the healthcare system is not built for the unique challenges they have. The more we can custom tailor solutions to patients, we will be able to improve lives, reduce suffering and improve overall outcomes.”

Pitfalls of Fragmented Care and Its Impact on Seniors

Unfortunately, most seniors experience the alternative; scattered providers who don’t communicate leading to worsening outcomes and higher costs. It’s almost as if with each new service, the client is starting from scratch as an unknown patient.

What is fragmented care and why does it cost more? Fragmented care is lack of coordination at its root. Easily explained in the common phrase, “The right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing.” Consequently, a myriad of pitfalls may occur. Anecdotally, the reality of shorter appointments doesn’t allow new providers time to get acquainted with the patient and their needs. Failure to recognize cognitive decline, transportation barriers, lack of supports or mobility challenges can easily prevent compliance with the treatment plan resulting in poor outcomes. Diagnostically, repeat testing is common in fragmented care resulting in redundant charges. Let’s take it a step further, when the struggle to get to appointments becomes too great, patients begin to dismiss issues. As their condition invariably worsens, elders then use 911 as their primary care; one of the biggest drivers of cost. The American Journal of Managed Care studied this phenomenon noting what is called, the fragmentation hypothesis.

Care management is the solution to fragmented care in its proactive approach. A single, accountable care manager considers mobility, memory, transportation, need for advocacy, family involvement, medication compliance and more as the plan is created. The plan is flexible and adjustments can be made without ever starting over. The process takes all things into account preventing duplication of services, exacerbation of conditions and subsequent hospitalization.

Empowering Wellness: Re-Imagined Care at your Fingertips

Concierge care focuses on the whole person, nurturing passions and interests even as age narrows their world. Building strong relationships, noting health changes, and intervening promptly—all part of our clinical expertise—guide seniors and their families to the right care when they need it. The benefits of concierge care and connectedness have been the focus of many studies: like in the International Journal of Integrated Care . When seniors were assigned to a “key worker” and felt their preferences were considered, they were more likely to engage in health goals. It begs the question. Is a dedicated care manager a luxury or a necessity given the unique challenges of the elder population?

Now, onto Cove Concierge and similar boutique care models. These work directly with you on a private pay basis, not through a health plan, yet still prioritize outcomes like the big guys. By working with seniors in a proactive way, via concierge care management, clients and families can save money, keep older adults healthier, and may contribute to overall Medicare savings -which ultimately benefits everyone.

At Cove, we’re not primary care providers or nurses, but we’re crucial to overseeing a senior’s health from a birds-eye view. Delivering our services, or in partnership with niche in-home providers, we handle everything from medication reminders, fall risk mitigation, clinical advocacy and cost containment. Our regular presence in the home enables us to pick up on subtle changes in a client’s condition, like increased confusion, and address it accordingly preventing an early onset of illness from escalating. Despite families investing in major expenses like senior housing, they sometimes overlook the value of routine visits for connection, observation and shifts from baseline—crucial in averting emergencies.

The Paradigm Shift

Luxury often evokes images of personal advocacy, but for individuals with limitations, overseeing logistics independently isn’t always feasible. Seniors’ needs demand a different approach, which can seem like an added cost in comparison to the reactive care model in which society is accustomed. Concierge care, however, represents a paradigm shift away from tradition.

Fragmented services like therapy, caregiving, or assisted living may easily catch your eye on Google. But hiring them one by one without understanding the power of concierge care management can be suboptimal and costly. Concierge care offers streamlined solutions with a clinical eye. And the best part? Contrary to what you may have thought, it doesn’t require you to tighten the belt—it’s a smart investment in both well-being and savings.