Elder Care Benefits
By Lisa Strandberg - Life Meets Work - July 2008
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Alan Stanford lived in Indianapolis while his 91-year-old mother lived in Sarasota, Fla. When he got word her leg had broken, he had few options to help her other than to hop on a plane and be there in person.
Upon arriving, he faced tough decisions about her care, often feeling ill-informed through a very emotional time. “You end up in an enormously complex, rule-determined situation of providers taking care of your parents,” Stanford said.
Then age 65, Stanford fortunately had the time and resources to travel repeatedly to Sarasota to ensure the adequacy of his mother’s care. A growing number of individuals in the so-called “sandwich generation” are not so lucky and handle care for their aging parents while holding down a job.
According to a 2004 AARP study on the state of Caregiving in the United States, 21% of the U.S. population provides unpaid care to friends and family age 18 and older. Of those caregivers, 59% are employed.
Faced with these realities, more and more employers are offering elder caregiver benefits to their employees. Debbie Phillips, vice president at work-life innovation firm WFD Consulting said, “What we see is that companies do this kind of work for business reasons but also because it’s the right thing to do for their employees.”
Cost to Employers
Managing elder care while employed can prove incredibly stressful for employees—and costly for employers.
“Oftentimes, what happens with elder caregiver issues is that if a company is not supportive, employees feel like they have almost no choice but to leave the workforce, and that’s preventable,” Phillips said.
A 2006 MetLife Caregiving Cost Study investigated the costs associated with elder care-related crises, absenteeism, replacement of employees, and the like. Results indicate that:
- The cost to employers for all full-time, employed caregivers is $33.6 billion per year.
- The average cost per employee per year for all full-time, employed caregivers is $2,110.
Some employers attempt to reduce their costs—and ease employees’ stress—by offering free or subsidized caregiver benefits. These include resource and referral services, workplace or online support groups, backup elder care, and flex time.
Resource and Referral Services
After Stanford and his wife cared for both his mother and her father, he founded Indianapolis-based My Health Care Manager. The company connects individuals with advisors to help them navigate the complexities of elder health care.
“Elder care benefits have been out there for four or five years, but they’re mainly coming through EAPs (employee assistance programs),” Stanford said. “They (EAPs) cover the waterfront, and one little rock on the waterfront is elder care.”
My Health Care Manager, and other services like it, specialize in elder care. These referral sources will often locate care facilities or respite providers, explain legal issues, and generally help employees understand their options.
Support Groups and Resources
Employer-sponsored caregiver support groups can provide information and emotional release for employees struggling with elder care issues. Likewise, on-site seminars prepare employees for adult care challenges.
An alternative model is to offer support tools online like those offered at the LifeWays Institute on Aging. Here, employees go through an education program which teaches time and stress management as well as communication and coping skills specific to elder caregivers.
Backup Elder Care
Overall, few situations prove more stressful for employed caregivers than the breakdown of their regular care arrangements due to illness, injury or other complications.
New backup care services including Work Options Group provide emergency care options. With backup programs, an employee simply calls an 800 number to request care, which is then arranged through a network of providers either at a center or in the employee’s home.
“More families are having fewer and fewer options available to them,” said Cindy Carrillo, founder and CEO of Work Options Group in Superior, Colo. “For every hour that someone uses backup care, they’re now at work or doing work,” Carrillo said.