When Jacci Perry-Ryan’s father fell and broke a hip, she did what most adult children do. She hired a home healthcare agency, trusting that their caregivers had been thoroughly vetted. After all, they were taking care of vulnerable elder people. But nothing could have been further from the truth. In fact, an unscrupulous caregiver manipulated her father out of thousands of dollars. And this is a common occurrence. According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, more than $37 billion dollars is stolen from seniors every year.
That’s what inspired Jacci to build Care Givers | Scare Takers, a platform designed to help adult children hire quality caregivers for their parents and avoid the mistakes she made. She is also the author of Care Givers Scare Takers: Exposing Fraud in Senior Care. On this episode of Wickedly Smart Women, Jacci joins Anjel to discuss the cultural shift from caring for our own elders to hiring caregivers and describe the challenge of caring for a parent when you work a full-time job. Jacci offers advice on using the Rule of Three to interview eldercare agencies, explaining what to look for in a caregiver and why it’s important to keep the relationship professional.
Listen in for insight on initiating the conversation about long-term care with your parents and learn how Jacci can help you find qualified caregivers and protect your loved ones from fraud and abuse. What You Will Learn What influenced the cultural shift from caring for our own elders to hiring a caregiver
Why Jacci recommends the Life Alert system for anyone over 70.
The challenge of caring for a parent if you work a full-time job.
Jacci’s advice on using the Rule of 3 to interview eldercare agencies, caregivers and former clients.
What 3 things to look for in a caregiver for your parent.
How Jacci discovered that her father was loaning money to his caregiver.
How Jacci wrote Care Givers Scare Takers to help others avoid the mistakes she made.
What Jacci’s father’s caregiver did to isolate him from friends and family.
The danger in becoming friends with a caregiver vs. maintaining a business relationship.
How to initiate the conversation on financing long-term care with your parents.
Listen to the full podcast on Spotify’s ‘Amazing People Amazing Things with Chuck Tuck’. TOPIC: “Do You Know Who’s Watching Your Parent?”
- 2020 WINNER BEST PODCAST ‘ Love Conquers ALZ’ – New Media Film Fest
Season 8 kicks off with episode 80 – a MUST LISTEN to show featuring JACKLYN RYAN – a sought-after speaker, consultant, workshop presenter, and best-selling author of the gut-wrenching book, “CareGivers, ScareTakers – Exposing Fraud In Senior Care”. With an aging population, families are struggling with dependable, trusted care. This process is riddled with problems. What can adult children do to protect their parents from abuse and financial theft and also protect their inheritance and peace of mind from unscrupulous caregivers?
We covered the following topics and more: *How to better prepare when you enter the “wormhole of healthcare”, *The Actions You Can Take to Safeguard Your Family, *Inheritance and Expose the Scammers. *Don’t wait for a Crisis to happen! Prepare YOUR OWN Care Ahead of Time. *We neglect to make a plan for our own care when we can no longer care for ourselves. *Make a Plan and Put it in Writing. • Discover resources, how to research and reviews on agencies and caregivers.
OPINION | MIKE MASTERSON: ‘ScareTakers’
A nation is judged by the way it treats its most vulnerable. Which makes Jacklyn Perry Ryan's new book, "CareGivers ScareTakers: Exposing Fraud in Senior Care," important. It is inspired by the mistreatment of her father by a so-called "caregiver" and the discovery that his plight was far more pervasive within the lucrative industry than she'd realized.
Everything initially seemed to be going "terrific." Yet over time, Jacklyn realized her father was receiving just the opposite treatment. That inspired her to detail the behavior of an "unscrupulous caregiver hired by a home care agency and how pervasive this problem has become."
"I'm at the age 'I don't care,' and that's a good but scary thing." She said she is simply getting an important message out.
One caregiver she calls "Claire" was prompt and engaging. She said she actually felt she'd found a new friend. Her biggest mistake. "Don't allow employees to become friends," Ryan told me.
Other caregivers for her father came and went. He fell four times in a year under one particularly inept caregiver. Yet Claire remained.
Then, two years into her employment, Claire admitted to Jacklyn that she'd earlier done time for methamphetamines. "How comfortable did she feel to divulge that and know she wouldn't be fired?"
Meanwhile, Jacklyn said her father had fallen in love with Claire, "even giving her money on the side beyond what he was paying the agency for her work. He was buying tires for Claire, paid off her house, sent her grandkids to camp. The list goes on. Due to Claire's brainwashing, he believed she was the only person who could properly care for him while isolating him from family and friends to the point he would no longer communicate, even becoming belligerent towards them."
She said the subject of her book is important because it pertains to the care of all our loved ones, as well as how aging folks will be cared for. "The crux of the problem is how can we find the best-qualified people to offer care? Home care services is in the top 10 employment sectors due to the aging of the baby boomer population. It has experienced an annual 5 percent growth over the past two years.
"I've learned some Arkansas home-care agencies don't perform background checks. If they do, it's only required once every five years. Fingerprinting isn't required and drug testing may be random."++
Jacklyn lately has been working with a legislator to get more stringent laws approved on behalf of vulnerable citizens.
"On average, caregivers, including CNAs (Certified Nursing Assistants) are paid $10 to $13 hourly. As things now stand, CNAs fall within the Arkansas School of Nursing and, as such, are required to be fingerprinted. Also, don't assume a caregiver is a licensed CNA.
"Why would anyone want to work with older or disabled people making such a low wage when they can work elsewhere for $15 an hour? Over time, as one ages, their needs increase. Are the same caregivers qualified accordingly to do additional medical and hospice assistance?"
It's become a field with many unscrupulous people who are little more than con artists, learning how to extract "tips" from our vulnerable elderly, Jacklyn added.
It's not just the elderly who are vulnerable. "What makes news sometimes is when molestations occur in day care and would include the Piney Ridge Detention Center and Arkansas' youth lockups. Arkansas needs to become far better at taking care of our vulnerable."
She advises to never make assumptions about caregivers because they work for a particular agency. "I also have a chapter from a licensed CNA, explaining they are only as good as the agency hiring them. There are good agencies and caregivers. But you have to make the effort to find them. Whether you hire an agency or an individual, you should interview them at least four times. Ask for references and background checks and when the last background check was done.
"Nothing happened when the caregivers and our family met with the agency in 2017. I initially thought the agency didn't know what was going on with my father. It threw me for a loop when I realized they knew, but didn't want to lose money."
One dismissed caregiver who performed well told Jacklyn the agency said they couldn't fire her abusive counterpart because they would lose the $200,000 annual account. The honorable caregiver became so distraught after being wrongfully fired that she left Arkansas. Another honest one was wrongly fired and died unexpectedly six months later.
Seems everything always boils down to the money nowadays, doesn't it, valued readers?
Jacklyn autographs books ordered directly from her website caregiverscaretakers.com where she cautions that the stories are only a "glimpse" into this extensive neglect and abuse. "Be aware. Don't wait for a crisis to happen," she admonishes. Her book also is available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble online, Smashwords and others.
Now go out into the world and treat everyone you meet exactly like you want them to treat you.
Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist, was editor of three Arkansas dailies and headed the master's journalism program at Ohio State University. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.
