“Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.”
Benjamin Franklin
Back in October, I blogged here regarding our awesome admissions team and I talked about knowing “when to hold ’em and when to fold ‘em.”
I had a similar experience yesterday which I’ll share with you. A distraught woman who already has a loved one in our facility, called me to ask whether she could come by for a talk. I said sure! She tells me this is regarding her Dad who lives alone in an apartment and she promptly informs me that she is bringing him along.
What is this about, I ask?
She informs me that she’d like to admit her Dad here for long term care under private pay and working towards achieving Medicaid (financial) eligibility.
An hour later, in walks the daughter with her clearly agitated Father in tow.
I quickly sum up the family dynamic.
She cares deeply for her Father and knows he cannot safely live alone. He disagrees. Dad is an alert and oriented gentleman who is definitely capable of making a bad decision of his own accord. He doesn’t want any part of this. He’s had his independence all his life and he is fiercely protective of his sense of dignity and autonomy.
Father and daughter were at an impasse and you could cut the tension in the room with a knife. The daughter literally asked me to assure her that she would be legally indemnified from any culpability when her Dad would fall and wind up in the hospital!
This was going nowhere.
They didn’t need an admissions guy they needed a counselor and a therapist to empathize and to open up a channel of communication between them.
So I took off my ‘admissions cap’ and put on my mediator cap. I spent as much time as I could spare talking them through their troubles until they found a common ground.
We discussed the option for nursing help at home and that is now a distinct possibility for them.
They were very happy when they left and that made me very happy.
Sometimes the best sales we make are the ones we don’t make (wow, that was deeeeeppp).
