By Sara Zeff Geber, PhD

Will life plan communities survive? Lots of opinions on that, but no one really knows. What we keep getting hit in the face with is that 80+ percent of the older adults in the U.S. want to “age in place,” and for most of them, that means they don’t want to leave their comfortable, rural or suburban (mostly) homes and move to a retirement community. 

Recent data tells us there are all kinds of reasons behind that, from inadequate food choices to loss of independence, a desire for familiar surroundings, reluctance to downsize their lives, and of course finances. The reality, we know, is that only 12-15% of elders in the U.S. can afford a continuing care, or life plan, community.

LeadingAge Session on Continuing Care at Home

At the LeadingAge conference in Nashville earlier this year, I attended an interesting session about the continuing care at home alternative that has gotten a lot of attention in the past few years. In this particular session, the focus was on Wesley SecureCare, a Baltimore, Maryland, company that evolved from a brick-and-mortar community that had its roots in the 19th century, to a continuing care at home program that received a license to begin operations in 2022.  

The panel I listened to at the conference consisted of:

  • Amanda Young, PhD, executive director of Wesley SecureCare
  • Lisa Hoffman, executive director of Pathstones by Phoebe (the insurance company partner to Wesley SecureCare)
  • Derek Dunham, president of Varsity, a mature market sales and marketing firm

Challenge Creating Interest

Most continuing care at home programs operating today (about 40 at last count) were started and sponsored by life plan communities, both single site and multisite. One of the leaders and best known in this space is Kendal at Home. Most of these continuing care at home entities offer contracts providing payment for care. However, increasingly, care-navigation-only plans are being offered (like from Wesley SecureCare).

The panel stressed that continuing care at home programs face big challenges. There is still a lack of awareness and understanding about how these programs work. It has proved to be difficult to succinctly communicate about the benefits, and it has proved to be a challenge to create interest now when the true value is in the future. That is exacerbated by the fact that they are selling trust and peace of mind … not an apartment. Even though the government-reported statistics continue to remind us that 70% of us are going to need some form of long-term care in our later lives, people continue to say, “I’m fine now; I’ll deal with this when/if I need it.”

Consumer Research Findings

Wesley SecureCare researched older adults’ chief concerns about their life and their future as part of the development of their continuing care at home program. They found that gender was not a divisive factor in the survey; men and women responded quite similarly throughout. People in higher income brackets tended to be more familiar with the program, yet affluence didn’t have any effect on the general interest in continuing care at home among the respondents.

The main concerns reported were:

  • Loss of mobility
  • Support so I don’t become a burden on my children
  • Protecting my assets
  • Care needs later in life

The major ways the respondents learned about the program was through their familiarity with the associated life plan community: They knew a participant, or they received a direct mail invitation. Most participants described themselves as “planners” who wanted to manage their next chapter of life.

Those who ultimately chose a continuing care at home program reported similar themes:

  • Desire to stay in current home
  • Desire for support if their health needs changed
  • Intention not to be a burden to others
  • Need for a reliable source of care other than family

Sales and Marketing Lessons Learned

The majority of the marketing was handled by Pathstones by Phoebe, the licensed insurance company. Since it was a new concept, they learned from making several mistakes in the beginning. Primarily, they learned that sufficient numbers of the public would only attend a presentation if they …

  • Called it an “educational conversation”
  • Held it at a high-end, attractive location
  • Served interesting food

Lisa Hoffman, the CEO of Pathstones by Phoebe, described their marketing challenge as “making a complex story easy to understand.” She described the typical consumer journey as a linear process:

  1. Becoming aware of a need
  2. Researching options
  3. Considering what makes sense in their particular situation
  4. Evaluating the options
  5. Making a decision

This journey translates to the sales process is as follows:

  1. Consumer receives a direct mail (or email) invitation to an educational event, or they see a digital ad as they are surfing their favorite websites.
  2. Consumer attends an event and gets the information about the continuing care at home program.
  3. Sales staff reaches out to schedule a personal appointment for an in-depth discussion.
  4. Consumer applies for the program.
  5. Applicant undergoes the medical and financial testing for qualification; if the qualifications are met, consumer joins the program.

Pathstones learned that their most likely consumers …

  • Are highly educated (master’s degree or above)
  • Are planners — always thinking about the future and trying to figure out long-term care
  • Want information to fill in the gaps in their knowledge of options
  • Are tech savvy

CCRC and CCaH Partnership

The three panelists agree that a continuing care at home program can happily coexist with a life plan community. They are not competitors; they can work together so consumers can evaluate all the options and choose the best strategy for themselves.

It also bears keeping in mind that these choices can be fluid. People change their minds during the aging journey. Needs change; priorities change.

They stressed that the objectives of their program are to create an initiative to collectively market the continuing care at home category, establish awareness and credibility that can benefit each of the participating programs, and develop a tool for broadening education about continuing care at home as a viable alternative for senior living.

Sara Zeff Geber, PhD, coined the term solo ager — and wrote the book on it: Essential Retirement Planning for Solo Agers. Dr. Geber is a frequent keynote speaker and author. Learn more about her here.