Caregiving Support for Mercer Advisors Clients

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Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining Mercer Advisors for today’s webinar.

My name is Laura Holmes, and I am a managing director at mercer, and it is an honor and a privilege to be with you all today. Today, we’re gonna be talking about all things caregiving.

And as many of you know, navigating caregiving can be incredibly challenging. And it is our hope today that you can walk away from this call with a new sense clarity and some new options around caregiving.

At Mercer Advisors, we want to improve our client’s financial outcomes and create opportunities for enhanced holistic wellness. And with these goals in mind, we have partnered with wealthy who’s joining us today. WELFI provides personalized support to help you tackle the logistical and administrative tasks of caring for the ones you love, including yourself.

And caring for each other is one of the most important and fundamental things that we do as humans. So why has it gotten so complicated?

Whether it’s care for yourself, for your spouse, for your kiddos, your parents, or even your next door neighbor. Who’s like family. You know, wealthy is here to help.

A few logistical things before we jump into our presentation today, we are going to be taking questions. So please use the Q and A feature to input questions. We would love to take those throughout the webinar, and then we will also be having a question and answer time at the end. And joining us today is caregiving expert, Aidan Donahue from wealthy.

Aidan is the director of strategic alliances, and we are thrilled to have him join us today. I’ve gotten the privilege to get to know Aiden and a lot of fun. You might notice the mountains behind him. I’m coming to you from Colorado.

So, Aidenet, and I connected a little bit about skiing, and I you’ll get some input on his journey around caregiving and some important milestones in his life that really led him to become passionate about caregiving. So skiing is one of his passions, and I know providing caregiving support and advice for his clients is as well. So we’re really excited to welcome Aiden. So Aiden, thanks so much for joining us today.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Laura. Really appreciate it. And first off, just a big thanks to Mercer Advisors for having me today. Special thanks to Lara, Kayla, Josh, and Kira. I also wanna thank everyone else for for joining for taking time out of your day to, to discuss caregiving to learn more about wealthy.

We at Wealthy are so grateful for our partnership with Mercer Advisors.

Wealthy is available to all Mercer adviser in employees and also, it’s available to all clients with over a million dollars in in AUM.

So, today, we’re gonna talk a little bit about wealthy, who we are, how we help support caregivers and their families, and we’ll also cover how to sign up for wealthy if you’re interested.

So just a little background about myself As Laura mentioned, I’m director of strategic alliances at wealthy.

I’ve been a wealthy, a little over a year at this point. And what brought me to wealthy, actually, was a caregiving experience I had in the middle of the pandemic. So in the middle of the pandemic, My mother-in-law was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer.

We had to move her m for Massachusetts. We had to move her off of Cape Cod to come be closer to us. She was living with my, my sister-in-law, her daughter for for several months. While my sister-in-law is trying to teach kindergarten classes over zoom.

So I I witnessed firsthand how stressful and overwhelming it can be when you’re dropped into that caregiving role, none of us knew what we were doing, but we all rolled up our sleeves helping, take her to her appointments, helping navigate her, health insurance helping navigate her her lead policy from work. But, so fast forward to fourteen, fifteen months ago, when I first learned about wealthy, I met our CEO Lindsey juris Rosner and was just so blown away and captivated by wealthy’s mission to support caregivers and their families to take all of those logistical and administrative tasks that were confusing and and, and challenging us. Get those off of the family’s plate, help them navigate, and and help them, throughout their caregiving journey. So, so with that, very excited to to share, a little more about our solution today.

We’re we’re thrilled to have you, Aiden. And again, I’m seeing some questions already coming into the chat. So thank you everyone. Keep keep putting those in there.

So, Aiden, we’ve got a lot of clients interested in today’s topic around caregiving. Like you mentioned, you know, your experience. You know, I’ve got young kiddos, a lot of different caregiving ways that we can think about that. Why is there such a need for caregiving support services in the United States?

Yeah. That’s that’s a great question. And there is just a major caregiving crisis in the US right now The US care economy is valued at over six trillion dollars.

But there are significant shortages in the paid labor economy.

Such that over half of the caregiver responsibility is falling back onto families and unpaid caregivers, really to make up the difference.

So right now over one in five adults in the US is a caregiver behind the scenes for a loved one with a complex, chronic, or ongoing condition.

And that that does not even include childcare.

And this problem is not going away as the baby boom generation continues to age people are living longer and longer are experiencing more complex caregiving needs as they age. So it’s becoming a real challenge to to, to care for everyone.

There are twenty million Americans who become unpaid caregivers each year. So we are certainly, it’s it’s gonna get worse before it gets better.

Despite the prevalence of unpaid family caregivers, in the US, there’s very little infrastructure or support that’s in place to help. So as I mentioned, and and as I witnessed, firsthand when when my mother-in-law got sick, it’s just so stressful and overwhelming trying to navigate our health care system and health insurance when you’re dropped into caregiving role and and you don’t really know what you’re doing.

And additionally, these unpaid family caregivers are just getting hit hard from from every angle.

Spending on average forty five hours a week outside of their jobs, spent on unpaid care. Spending over eight hundred dollars a month on medical and caregiving expenses.

And understandably, over half of them are reporting clinically significant levels of stress, anxiety, and depression.

So Wealthies taking this challenge head on, trying to provide much needed relief, support, and guidance to these caregivers and their families and I’ll get into this in a minute. I’ll I’ll describe how wealthy supports families. But first, I’d love to just start off with a quick video that I think, really helps set the stage for the impact that we have on families.

So I am going to exit the presentation.

I’m going to pull up my screen.

And is this working alright?

My name is Eric Fair.

My wife, Jennifer, and I have three kids.

Alex, who is eighteen, Eliana, who is gonna be sixteen, and Eva, who is twelve.

All three of our kids are adopted.

And when Alexander, our oldest was two and a half years old, he was diagnosed with a an extremely rare in terminal syndrome called Sanfilippo syndrome. There’s about one out of a hundred thousand kids that are born with it. It’s terminal. It’s incurable.

And it is progressive. So over time, he’s gradually lost most or all of his abilities July twenty fifth of two thousand sixteen is when our world really turned upside down. He on the hospital, and spent sixty days in a hospital, thirty of those in the IQ with acute respiratory disease, and that set up a whole chain of events for the last five years that have required increasing levels of care for him.

I learned about wealthy in one of our team meetings at work. Wealthy is an amazing platform. They have very clearly identified tasks and care activities that to happen. It went through a list of questions to identify the type of care that we would need.

And within, I think, a day or two, we had been assigned somebody at Wealthy who is Kristen. And then within a week, I believe we actually had a call with her directly to discuss Alex’s needs and how she could help.

Well, I think that form is set up for anyone to be able to communicate and request a health care need. And from there, you are set up with your care coordinator and we can utilize the platform as almost a digital filing cabinet, if you will.

Alex has fairly unique health diagnosis.

So our initial approach was to navigate several time sensitive issues.

Alex was just a few months shy of turning. Eighteen. And turning eighteen meant that there were many changes coming to his health care programs and other community and state programs that support his health care. Our main goal as a care advisor is really to always provide a solution or a workaround not only do we use technology to serve our care recipients, but it’s really the person behind it.

Care coordinators are the front end and care advisor on the back end. Doing a lot of the life work for Alex’s needs. He’s gotten bigger. The caregivers were having a tough time taking care of him.

So one of the things that we’ll did was we actually will appeal matters to his insurance company so that way you can get a fully electric bed. We wrote it so the doctor can sign off. So everything was just ready to go. So it was just something to kind of help the family along.

Our health care system is complex. And a person can’t be expected to navigate it alone. The beauty of wealthy is that we’re here to do that with you.

I think Wealthy is unique in the sense that I’ve never actually had a service that has been this level of human centered support.

If you find yourself in the same situation or similar situation and you’re not quite sure what to do, then I would just say do it. There’s somebody on the other end that is ready to care for you and your family and ready to support you, whatever you need.

For the things that we need to do, we do, for the things that we don’t need to do, Well, he does.

So let me just exit out of there and get back into the deck.

And then Thanks for sharing that aid. And I feel like that just gave a I mean, just his home for for a lot of us, on the on the call today, you know, just thinking about those in our lives that we’re caring for. And I just I loved, you know, what what the the family shared about just this human centered approach and human centered support, which I think is at at the core of of why we’re having the conversation today. So Thanks for sharing that video. Thanks, Laura. My my pleasure. And, thank you all for for taking a couple minutes to watch it.

I think it’s one of those things where I could present slides and answer questions till I’m blue in the face, but I I think there’s really just no substitute for hearing directly from some of the families that we impact. So wealthy is revolutionizing the way families care for loved ones and themselves.

When a member opens a care project, we match them with a care coordinator the same day, to quarterback their caregiving efforts and to start completing those logistical and administrative tasks to get them off of that family’s plate.

This allows the caregiver to stay in the workforce. It it relieves a significant levels of stress And also, it it just literally gives more hours in the day, back to the family to to care for their loved one.

Again, this is this is the service that I wish that we had when we were in our caregiving situation.

So what I thought might be helpful before sort of getting into all the ins and outs of wealthy was I just I wanted to highlight an example of what the wealthy member experience looks like. So let’s take Todd, for example.

Todd lives with his mother-in-law, Carol, his wife, Anna, and their newborn son, Sam.

Carol suffers from dementia. She’s been living with Todd and Anna for, for a while now. Her needs are starting to evolve and She’s actually having difficulty managing, some of her day to day tasks. So Todd and Anna have been struggling to balance work as it is, and now they need to provide care to Carol. So they’re under stress and just having trouble balancing everything.

The family knows that they need support, but they aren’t sure where to begin.

So Todd discovers that he has access to wealthy. He signs up for Wealthy and opens a care project for Carol, just sharing some basic information about their situation.

Based on the information that Todd has shared, he and his family are matched up, right away with the best fit care coordinator.

So in this case, they’re matched with Jennifer. Jennifer is a mother. She’s a licensed social worker. And she has significant experience with geriatric care management.

Within moments of creating his account. Todd has invited his wife, Anna, to join the care circle, and they’ve already scheduled a a phone call the next day with with Jennifer.

So once they’ve had, once they’ve had the chance to chat through the family situation, Jennifer gets to work setting up a care plan that addresses their needs.

Jennifer comes out of the gate, hits hits the ground running and begins supporting immediately with the tasks that the family needs help with she also suggests some additional tasks that the family hadn’t even considered.

So, in this case, Jennifer was able to find and vet in home care establish power of attorney for Carol, verify insurance coverage, evaluate local memory care facilities, and, provide ongoing memory care board.

So wealthy is unique, as as you heard in the video, wealthy is unique in that we are the doers of these tasks.

We vet providers and facilities based on the family’s preferences.

We are the ones making the calls, scheduling the appointments, verifying coverage, and basically ensuring that no stone is left unturned on behalf of the family.

No. That’s just amazing to hear that that story and that example. And I know there are a number of of individuals on the call that might have been in a a similar situation. I think about you know, my family’s experience with my grandfather suffering from dementia and having to walk through this ourselves. So thanks thanks for highlighting that. And For those that that I know a number of people have been joining kind of throughout the time that we’ve gotten started and just wanna reiterate that mercer’s excited to partner with wealthy on a lot of this caregiving support and be able to be a resource for our clients. And so, Aiden, when we think about kind of you know, where where families are, can you talk to talk to the listeners today about what other types of support or, you know, caregiving support services that wealthy offers.

Yeah. Absolutely. That’s that’s a great question.

Would love to review really the breadth of the caregiving support services at wealthy offers.

I will mention that elder care does represent our highest volume of cases, but our support really spans across all phases of life.

So we help people with self care, caring for themselves, individuals, who maybe managing a condition or, their own tough diagnosis.

We help fam, we help growing families navigate childcare support, backup care, team support.

We help families care for a loved one with complex needs. So whether it’s a loved one with a chronic condition, someone in need of mental health or substance abuse support, or remember with special needs.

I I already mentioned we support, families helping with elder care and dementia. And then, lastly, we help families navigate, end of life and and loss of a loved one, which is an especially difficult moment of life. So having having resources to help navigate that and and support grief counseling and everything is is a big, big component as well.

So I I mentioned our breadth of caregiving services I’d love to spend aside and just discuss the depth of our caregiving support as well.

We take a very holistic approach to providing caregiving support. And and we recognize that more often than not, that the medical needs is really just the tip the iceberg in terms of the the ongoing caregiving challenges.

So we extend our support and our expertise, to help families with the financial aspects of care. So that’s everything navigating health care benefits, fighting insurance claims as as you heard in the video, submitting appeals for, a hospital bed in that case.

We help with the legal aspects of care. So helping with, power of attorney wills, making sure that all of the legal documents are are in place We help with, in home care, safety, transportation, we help families with housing. So that’s everything from, identify senior living facilities, memory care facilities, short term solutions.

And, last but certainly not least is we help support all caregivers from a social and emotional standpoint by helping them feel less alone.

We have learned that being a caregiver can be in in incredibly isolating experience. So being able to provide that social and emotional support, connecting folks with with resources, community groups, other other caregivers that may be in a similar situation is is a big, a big part of that wellness as well.

Aiden, I feel like this is, like, such a robust framework. And so for even for myself, and I’m sure for many of our listeners where you know, we maybe have thought of caregiving or thought of long term caregiving in one certain way. I think you’re really dispelling a lot of myths for listeners today. You know, it’s not just, you know, aging parents.

It’s really thinking about all of those different, you know, any anyone in your life but then also going beyond just the medical piece to really taking a look at all of these different components in this framework. And again, it because it is. It’s beyond the medical side. It’s that social, emotional, legal, and all of those pieces are so important and complex.

And you your team makes that makes that simple. When we think about, you know, kind of the engaging caregivers, how does how does wealthy engage with caregivers and their families?

Yeah.

Great question. So wealthy supports families at every moment along their care journey and I’ll go into detail on on each of these in, in the coming slides, but I just first wanna touch on really the three pillars of wealthy’s caregiving support model.

First off is care planning.

So we are helping engage members early in their caregiving journey, helping them create a care plan so that when their caregiving responsibilities inevitably increase in the future, they can hopefully skip over that crisis mode stage and have a plan that they can put in place. They’ve had those conversations with siblings. They, have had the conversations about finances responsibilities and cons and can put their care plan into action.

The second is care concierge. This is our bread and butter. This is really what wealthy is is most known for.

This is where we are pairing families with a care coordinator to quarterback their caregiving efforts, complete tasks on their behalf, help them navigate the help care system. And again, literally give them back more hours in the day by completing tasks on their behalf.

Last but not least is wealthy community.

And this is really an expert moderated peer to peer network.

So caregivers can connect other caregivers, get answers to questions and and ultimately feel less alone.

This is probably my my favorite slide in the deck. Our our care team is absolutely the heart and soul of wealthy.

The care team is comprised of care coordinators and care advisors.

So the care coordinator is the single point of contact for family throughout their entire care journey.

They’re the quarterback. They help, they help families navigate the care landscape.

And and we do not run a call center. So, this will be the single point of contact throughout a family’s journey. Someone’s not calling in and having to tell their story a different time to a different, each time they call into a different person.

The care coordinators are typically masters level social workers and they are supported behind the scenes by multiple teams of subject matter experts called care advisors our care advisors are a couple inches wide and just miles deep in terms of their expertise in specific areas.

Which makes them very efficient at completing tasks behind the scenes, on behalf of the family. So We have teams of, subject matter expert care advisors, who specialize in everything from in home care, transportation, housing, veterans affairs, Medicare, and Medicaid, insurance claims, appeals, financial support, child care, and and several other So it’s it’s a great model for having that consistent point of contact, but also leveraging significant, extra teased behind the scenes in terms of, of those subject matter experts.

This is what the care dashboard looks like when a member logs in. You could think of this essentially as the command center. That keeps all important resources in one place.

This is where, an individual would go to track the tasks that wealthy is completing on their behalf. We maintain a calendar for upcoming appointments and important dates.

And I will mention that a member has the ability to other members, helping with, like, restrict certain things as So for example, if you have a neighbor who is responsible for, taking your dad to kidney dialysis appointments during the week, you can invite that neighbor as part of the care circle to come view the dash four And, Aiden, I’m just gonna jump in on on because I’m I’m using you a little bit. I’ve can you We’d be able to be responsible.

Yes. K. Does that help if I go off video for me? Right. I think we were just losing yeah.

We were just losing your your voice a little bit. So I just wanna make sure this is such great information. I wanna make sure that the listeners aren’t missing anything. So we just we’re talking a little bit about the the So just wanna make sure if you can just highlight that again so that everybody can capture this great information.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I’m so sorry about that. I went off camera, which I think, might might help with the with the audio. But yeah, so so the care dash board. This is what it looks like for, when members log in.

It it’s a great way to track the tasks that are being completed. We have a calendar for upcoming appointments and key dates, and you can invite individuals, on a need to know basis If you have, a neighbor who is responsible for taking your dad to kidney dialysis appointments was the example I gave. You can invite that neighbor to come view the care dashboard but restrict their access so they’re only able to see the appointments they’re responsible for. They don’t see the families, financial history, medical history, and everything else.

The dashboard has a medication tracker, which can actually be a lifesaver. If god forbid, someone winds up unconscious in the in the and the doctor says what medication is this person taking. You have all of that information at your fingertips.

So a database of key contacts, physicians, financial advisors, lawyers, secure document storage, And, lastly, the dashboard serves as really the hub for, communications with the care team.

I think this is great, Aiden. Can I just can I jump in? We’re getting a lot of questions coming in now, which is which is exciting. And there’s, you know, we’ve talked quite a bit about families. Can you talk about, you know, ways, you know, we talked a little bit at the beginning around, you know, maybe even your neighbor. Kind of who can who is eligible, you know, for for caregiving? Does it have to like, if you’re taking care of your your neighbor, is that something that would, you know, wealthy could help with, even if it’s not a direct family member?

Yeah. So, so so people that are are eligible include, spouse, domestic partner, child, step child, adopted child, legal guardian, parent in laws, step parent, grandparent, and step grandparent.

So those those are the folks that, that that we can help support in terms of, people in in the care circle. If that’s helpful. Perfect. That that’s helpful. Yes. Thank you.

Yeah. Absolutely. Let’s see. Any any other questions?

We’ve got we’ve got a few. One that might might be tied to the caregiving dashboard, you know, there was a around being able to attend doctor’s appointments as patient advocates. Is that something that wealthy caregivers would support with?

If so, how might that work?

Yes. Absolutely. Great question. And that that’s definitely something that we do. We can have care coordinators sit in on on doctor’s visits and take notes on behalf of the family.

A lot of times when you’re in a doctor’s appointment, especially if it one where you’re getting some difficult news. You’re I’ll I’ll speak for myself. My my my brain isn’t always functioning correctly. It’s sort of hard to record everything that’s happening. So we we can have care advisors sit in on those meetings, take notes, and then, suggest next steps in terms of oftentimes they’ll say maybe we should get a second opinion. They can help schedule that, or otherwise help families with the, with the next steps. So, yes, we absolutely do that.

Great. Thank you.

See. Any other questions or or should we move on if there’s other questions? We can we can we can continue on. Thank you. Sure.

So the last of the really three ways that that wealthy engages directly with families is, I mentioned wealthy community. It’s a expert moderated forum providing support for caregivers offering peer to peer support to help caregivers feel less alone. I mentioned how caregiving can be a very isolating feeling. So putting caregivers in touch with other caregivers who may be in a similar situation can be very empowering.

This is also it’s expert moderated as well to make sure that, there’s no sort of misinformation being spread on the form, anything like that.

Our our experts are also providing, advice, answers to questions, and, and resources to to caregivers as well.

And then I wanted to just change gears for for a moment and just take you through three different case studies really, just to give you sort of a, the the breadth of, of, different cases that that we can cover. And and how we can help in different situations.

So, first off, is a a case taking care of their mom. Christie Maureen, we’re spending time on vacation when their mom had heart attack, leading to multiple medical complications, and she had to have her leg amputated.

Wealthy was able to support with claims and billing, liaising between medical providers, insurance providers, in the hospital, in terms of in home care, wealthy recommended local contracting companies to set up, home alert system, arrange transportation services on on behalf of the mom.

And then on the medical side, set up a shared calendar to help with appointment management and transferred medical records between providers.

And the big one is that wealthy was able to save this family over seven hundred thousand dollars, after successfully, appealing a number of claims So, again, just having experts that understand the health care system understand how to, appeal these claims is is something that’s, very families.

Oops.

Another example, taking care of their daughter. So Cindy’s daughter has a rare genetic condition. She and her husband were overwhelmed navigating therapy and, insurance coverage, resources, school options, wealthy was able to provide guidance on the special needs trust application process.

We arranged in home support services, research support groups, and various school programs to help support.

We were able to verify insurance coverage for different therapies and set up a shared calendar for appointment management.

So at the end of the day, we helped the family make sure that they were making all the right considerations, and just took took a lot off their plate in terms of, navigation and and taking these steps completing time for the family.

And and, Aidan, there’s, I think a couple of questions too around, you know, just thinking through, you know, if if the going back to the, the childcare one, if you wanted to jump back there, there I think there was a question around, you know, if If I’m a caregiver for a grandchild, be a little bit different than this scenario, will a wealthy be able to pro help provide backup care if this individual needs to travel or have any other commitments?

Yes. That’s that’s a great question. That’s something that we do see a lot of, and and we do help with with backup healthcare.

That’s something that we see very often. And we we we take a slightly different approach to to some other companies where We are having these conversations with the family upfront even if they don’t come to us and say we need backup care when we’re helping a family that has young young kids. We are suggesting that and we are coming up with options, in advance. So that in the morning of if something comes up, someone needs to travel, someone sick.

There’s a doctor appointment. What whatever it is so that there’s, essentially a plan in place and and it basically sort of a tree for, okay, here’s the first call. Here’s the second call. Here’s the third call.

But, yes, so so we we absolutely do, help with backup care and sort of planning in advance for what that looks like when the when the need inevitably arises.

Thank you. Sure.

Any other questions?

I think even on the the previous slide around the the family with mom and having a heart attack, You know, there was a question around supporting medical emergencies. I think you highlighted this a little bit.

Just maybe talking can you talk through that a little bit more around how wealthy might support in a medical emergency like this, like where an ambulance or something might be involved?

Yeah. I think, and and a big part of it is when I shared the the care dashboard, just having all of the resources in one place, knowing who the doctors are, who the what those phone numbers are, and and being able to contact and coordinate between the right people. But that’s that’s something that we can that we can help with and, really helping from, from all angles in terms of, not just the immediate response, but sort of the, all of the follow-up by as well, making sure someone’s getting the right care, and then that all of the other, considerations are, in terms of medication, in terms of, notifying the right physicians.

Looping in family members that all of that is covered as well.

Wonderful. And so, maybe jumping into kind of who can use wealthy? We’ve got a lot of questions again around who can use wealthy. And I think you’ve answered it a little bit, but I think we have we have a slide in here that really highlights who can use wealthy. So I think it would just be great to have the eye and kinda see that and be able to talk through, who’s able to benefit from from the wealthy services.

Perfect. Yes. I know we’re getting a ton of questions around, like, Can I, you know, if if so some of the other questions in there are, can I, you know, if I have, if I’m, you know, one of the questions that I saw and I and I love this? Maybe if my, you know, spouse passed away, and I, you know, I’m a Mercer advisor’s client, but my children are not, and my children, you know, and I need care know, am I able to kind of bring my kids in so that I can have care for myself? Is that something that might fit under this service as well? Absolutely.

And and self care is one of our very most, frequent uses as well, that that we see. So, yeah, absolutely. And then so the member would be able to, open an account and then, create a care project for themselves and then pull in other members of their family, into that care circle to, to be connected and to to help support them. So that’s that’s something that we that we see all time, and and we are very, we are very good at helping support that.

In terms of who can use wealthy, so mercer advisor clients with a million in assets under management, are eligible to use wealthy for free for up to six months.

Clients can create a care plan for an immediate family member. And I mentioned before, but I’ll I’ll go I’ll go over it again. Just, it is it’s a long list, but for a spouse domestic partner, child, step child, adopted child, legal guardian of a child, parent, in laws, step parent, brand parent or step ah, or step brand parent.

And and that includes self also I should I should add.

I think that I think that’s great. And I I just wanna highlight, you know, Aiden, you might have the answer to this. I’m curious.

What is what’s kind of the average length of of care. I know we we have, you know, mergers providing a service for six months. What’s kind of like the average that most people might find themselves in a need for caregiving support?

Yeah. Absolutely. Great question.

So I would say our average care project is around three months.

So six months of coverage is is very generous. And I I think the majority of cases will be under that.

In any cases where a care project lasts longer than six months, and and they they certainly do exist. There are, all all different, different types of needs and support But so for cases where it lasts longer than six months, an individual, a Mercer advisor’s client would have the option to continue with wealthy beyond six months. And and they can, they would they would pay for it at, four hundred dollars a month ongoing It would be billed through Mercer Advisors. But so they have that option as well. There would be no changes. You would stay with the same care coordinator and and everything else. And that’s for for for longer term care needs, but, again, our our average care project is, around three months.

Perfect. I think that’s great. Now I’m seeing I’m getting a lot of questions, Aiden, so we we’ve got, you know, spouse, child, People are asked. The people are asking sibling.

I don’t see adult sibling in here. So I just wanna answer that for the group. Is that Not not included. It’s just immediate kind of family, not sibling?

I I I believe, I believe siblings are in included as well. I think that should be. Okay. That’s a that’s a good point.

Okay. Perfect. And like I said, the attendees are asking me, so I I wanna make sure I’m in three. Great.

Great, bud. And so I think too, you know, just for for this group, even if you have specific questions, you know, we can Mercer or your your wealth adviser, we’ll be able that connect you as well if you have, you know, additional questions. We’d be happy. You know, I’m seeing some other kind of nuances on relation family relationships.

So just if you’re interested reach out to your adviser, let them know. And then I think that’ll be a great way, you know, that if there’s if there is a nuanced relationship of some sort, we wanna make sure, that we’re able to get you the best answer and get best care. So great. Thanks, David.

Absolutely. And and that’s actually a perfect segue in terms of how to how to sign up. The first thing you’re gonna want to do if you’re interested in signing up for wealthy is to reach out to your adviser they can provide you with your eligibility ID, and then you can visit, join dot wealthy dot com forward slash mercer adviser clients, And then, there’s also a QR code on the screen that you could everything’s done through QR these days. So you can you can scan that and that will, pull up the the landing page where you can register.

But again, you will need that eligibility ID from your Mercer advisor’s advisor.

And then you would go on, you would create an account, and then to create a a care project, you would just share a little bit more about your caregiving scenario.

And this is actually a very important step.

The more information that you share, and and you don’t need to provide pages and pages, but, if if you do provide some good information there, it’s gonna help us pair you with a very good fit care coordinator someone who has a significant experience in in helping, caregiving situations like the one that you have. So I would encourage you to To share some information about your caregiving situation, we will pair you up same day with the care coordinator.

You can then schedule a call with the care coordinator. And they will get up and running to start completing tasks right away.

I will also mention that Some of the most common questions that we get is, my unique sick situation is x y z or mine is a b or or whatever it is. Everyone’s situation is unique. People say, how how would you support me?

My recommendation would be to sign up and schedule that meeting with the, with the care coordinator.

And and and official care project doesn’t launch until we start completing tasks on behalf of a family.

So have that initial consultation, have that call. You can explain your situation and and they can walk you through exactly, how wealthy can help support what the specific considerations are that, you know, maybe you hadn’t thought about So having that initial conversation is really the best way to, to understand how wealthy can support with a unique caregiving scenario.

Great.

Thank you. I know, I we’re getting a lot of questions coming in here now, Aid. And so this is this is fantastic. And I wanna just highlight too.

We will be sending out this recording will be available. We’ll be sending this out. So if you wanna review it or anything like that, we’ll be able to this available as follow-up to today’s call. And again, you know, eligible for, like, like Aiden mentioned, clients, of Mercer Advisors with over a million dollars in assets, as well as employees.

So very excited about this offer.

A lot of questions coming in, Aidan, any anything else before we jump into Q and A because I they’re they’re flooding in right now. So I wanna make sure we have time to to answer everyone’s questions here today. So anything else, that you wanna highlight, anything else from your experience that would be beneficial for listeners today?

I I think that’s really everything on on my side. And and I’ve been talking a lot. So I’m I’m excited to to hear some, some questions from the listen and happy to to help answer.

Great. Well, I’ll kick it off here. We’ve got a couple questions because we have people in different states. So there was a curiosity around if a client lives in New York, for example.

So if a listener’s in New York, but their parents are in Florida can wealthy help support the parents you know, even though they’re in different states, what does that look like? Yeah. Absolutely. And and we see that all the time.

And, that can be a huge help to to folks who are caregivers for a loved one that lives across the country or several states away And I mean, I I I have a colleague who’s caring for their dad several states away. And before wealthy, they were having to jump on a plane every month to go out and and check-in on him.

But with wealthy set up, we are doing all of the day to day logistical tasks We have scheduled transportation. We’re vetting providers. We’re we’re helping, the dad get to and from his appointments.

So that’s that’s a big, a big thing that we can help with, our our folks who don’t live close to the loved one they’re caring for because we can put these sort of boots on the ground and help, help vet those solutions and take care of, of the individual.

Thank you. I think, again, a lot of excitement about using the this service. If someone doesn’t need caregiving today, Aiden, you know, can they, you know, look at something, you know, a couple months down the road or if a caregiving needs, like, it’s not like you have to use this today scenario. Correct?

Yeah. That’s that’s correct. It’s it’s a benefit provided by, Mercer Advisors, which is which is fantastic.

And, that’s that’s absolutely right. That that you can you can sign up today. You can sign up months from now. When when caregiving needs increase. I will mention one other point is that we never end or terminate a care project, we we call it pausing a care project.

And that’s so if someone if someone comes to us with a caregiving need and we help get them into a place where they can manage it and and they’re comfortable, we can pause the care project and then we can pick it up right right back up, same care coordinator and everything a month later, a year later as as caregiving needs changes and and evolve.

So that’s something else to to keep in mind also is that the six months do not need to be used consecutively.

Okay. Great. Another question that’s coming in is, you know, obviously, we’re gonna be talking, you know, Wealthy would be coordinating a lot of, you know, medical sensitive information, A couple questions around, you know, obviously Mercer’s partnering with with Wealthy on this front. One question was kind of how how much information, you know, does wealthy and do wealthy and mercer share with each other regarding the services?

Is that, you know, in in my experience, it seems very confidential. So I just wanna kind of how would you answer that? It what is their information going back? What does that look like?

Yeah. No. We’re we’re not providing any participant level, information to to Mercer. It’s more just, the number of people that are using the service.

And and that’s more for for, billing purposes than than anything else. But no, we we are extremely confidential not sharing that information outside of, of of the the care circle in terms of, you know, what’s the sensitive information that’s been shared.

Thank you. Okay. Now we had the QR code. So we’re, you know, we’re pretty tech savvy here, but a couple of questions, Aiden, around you know, if individuals or families aren’t feeling comfortable with technology, you know, maybe they’re, you know, not comfortable using the computer.

Are they still able to connect with caregivers, like via phone? Any talk to us about that.

Yeah. Absolutely. And and we do. We work with a lot of, a lot of folks who, for one reason or another, either they’re not comfortable with the technology or some some folks just prefer the old fashioned phone.

And and we are happy to engage with folks. We we like to meet people where they are.

So it is necessary to set up an account online, but, they can reach out to wealthy and a care coordinator can help do that with them on on the phone.

We have we have a staff of people who can help them, sign up and register an account. And then after that, all of the engagements can be, can be by phone. They can schedule up, excuse me, they can they can schedule calls with their care coordinator who can Okay. Support them that way.

Perfect. I think that’s that’s great. I know a lot of people were were asking about the technology piece, which is which is great. I think, again, a lot of a lot of questions around, you know, just kinda how to get how to get started. So I think we’ve got this back here, which is which is perfect.

A little bit around geographic location. I know we talked about kind of the New York and Florida example. Are there any limitations from geography, or can anyone in the country use this?

Yeah. No. No limitations in all. We cover, all fifty states. We are active in all fifty states.

We are also active in Canada, UK, and Ireland. So if anyone has a loved one living in any of those countries, we can we can help support them as well. But we are national.

Excellent. Good. I think that was a a couple of people had that same question. We had a few questions too around, working with individuals or couples around finding assisted living.

Is that something that wealthy care coordinators would be able to support Absolutely. We we do that all the time. I had a case come across my desk probably two months ago where it was a family looking it was an individual looking for, care for his parents. His dad was not a native English speaker, and had dementia.

We vetted twenty eight different facilities on behalf of that family, and we recommended two, based on the criteria that the family had had provided.

And we said, would you like us to schedule transportation? Would you like us to schedule a tour? So you can you can tour the two facilities. But just just the amount of sheer time that that saved that family from call excuse me, from calling and vetting twenty eight different places, to also having the expertise and and the folks who are doing this all day every day and they know the questions to ask.

I’ll speak for myself. If I was doing that, I I don’t even know that I’d know the the right questions to ask to to that facilities. So, that’s that’s a huge part of what we do. As I mentioned, elder care, so senior care and and dementia as well are our most frequent use cases.

So that is absolutely our bread and butter something that we we will absolutely help families with.

I think that’s that’s fantastic. So thank you for clarifying that. Another question that a couple different listeners have put in is, again, maybe around if they don’t have family or, you know, immediate family to to help support them. Maybe they don’t have children or they they don’t have spouse.

Can you maybe give another example, Aiden, around how wealthy can step in for for those individuals?

I’m sorry. If they don’t have, a spouse or or a family member. Like, if if they themselves don’t wanna, you know, be a a a burden on someone else and, you know, they don’t have immediate family to take care of them, how would they engage with with wealthy, just for care for themselves personally? Sure. Yes. Thank you for clarifying.

Yeah. So so they would set up a care project for themselves.

They would have a conversation with our care coordinator who would sort of under and their situation, what resources they have available to them, and and depending on their needs, we could connect them with local facilities.

We could connect them with local providers who can help with whatever whatever condition it is that they’re experiencing. We can connect them with community groups or or peers for peer support. So it I mean, it really depends what the individual is is dealing with in terms of conditions, but that’s something that we we help with all the time is self care and and helping people find resources to, to to help them manage their own condition.

Fantastic. I think that’s you you just answered a a lot of questions and put, you know, a lot of people mind at ease around that. So thank you, Aidan. I I have a few more questions and that they’re they’re related.

So I’m gonna group them together here. They’re mostly around you know, insurance. And so wanting to to check with you what role does wealthy play in fighting insurance claims for for clients. Yeah.

That’s that’s a great question. And that was one of my biggest challenges when we were, caring for my mother-in-law. I was sort of understanding navigating the insurance landscape and the claims and everything. And, so so we are advocates for the family.

We are we we always have the family’s best interest in mind, and we have, powerful teams of subject matter experts who understand the appeals process, the claims process, and can really dig in and go to work on behalf of the family. I think in the case, in the video that we saw, they were able to appeal a claim for an electric bed for the care recipient, and they wrote a doctor’s note for the doctor where the doctor can sign off on it as part of the appeal So again, to navigate the the system to to know how to do that and then be able to deliver that from the dock to the insurance company, the insurance company, accepted the appeal and and paid out for the bed.

In in one of the case studies that we showed our team went to work for the family appealing claims and saved them over seven hundred thousand dollars, in that, in that post case. So so we are absolute, advocates for the family and and our our team will roll up their sleeves and and help help push insurance companies on behalf of the family.

That’s that’s just fantastic. A couple more questions. One question around, children would does well is it wealthy able to help coordinate behavioral health care for a child or young adults? I think the answer is yes, but I just wanna feel affiliated.

Absolutely.

We we do that all the time.

And that’s that that can be a big challenge for folks in the sandwich generation. Folks who are caring for, aging parents as well as, young children, oftentimes who have a condition or a behavioral disorder.

So, yeah, that’s that’s something that we do all the time. We have subject matter experts dedicated to that. So we can absolutely help that family find, the right resources for, for their their child or children.

That’s fantastic. Another question around, you know, long term care facilities is wealthy able to help aging parents who have who are already in assisted living residents, but maybe need more help. How how would that work?

Yeah. Absolutely. That’s something that we can do is, the care coordinator would speak with the family and sort of understand what the what the current status is, what the current needs are, are the needs being met, are the needs falling short in certain areas, and then can, can recommend either supplemental care or, perhaps the recommendation is to move to a facility that has greater capabilities in the in the areas of need. So yeah, that’s that’s absolutely something that we can help evaluate And I think sort of the the care coordinators and our care advisors working behind the scenes.

Just their expertise in that field can really help a family in saying, yeah, this this facility is really falling short in x y z area or, you know, maybe the facility isn’t the problem, but maybe we need to, pull in a sort of in home care expert a couple times a week or some something else to to sort of supplement the care given. Mhmm. That’s great to to hear that. And I think that that dovetails to an to another question was I think you might have just answered it, but I wanna ask it again, you know, is wealthy able to send someone to the facility? Like, you know, to check on how the the covered party is being cared for. I think you just said that, but a new question just came in around that, you know, maybe sending someone to sure that everything is in order and meeting the family’s expectations?

Yeah. Absolutely.

That that is something that we do, especially in the situations as I mentioned before, where where the loved one is remote and where a family member is, unable, to to do that. The that’s definitely something that we can that we can do. We can follow-up with the facility we can send in. A third party to sort of that and and make sure that that the care is going as as planned.

These are great questions, by the way. This is They they are they’re coming in here and we’re we’re getting to most of them. And if If I didn’t answer your question or Aiden didn’t answer your question directly, you know, we will be having your wealth advisor follow-up with you because I, again, I think there’s a lot of questions around you know, who’s covered and how long, you know, that period of time is Aiden. There’s even some more questions, you know, that the time period.

So, you know, a few more questions around that. But I think, we’ll be following up with this webinar again. So you know, great questions, everyone. Thank you so much for your engagement.

It is always wonderful to be able to answer your questions and understand what’s important to each of you. And, again, if you’re interested in connecting with wealthy, please, you know, follow this QR code, you know, or or into the link here, and please reach out to your advisor to get that that code that Aiden mentioned.

And, you know, even to schedule a time to to get signed up, get connected to this team that really provides this high level of support for you and your family members, and they’ll be able to know, answer, answer those questions.

And, like, like, we said at the beginning, like, like I shared and just kinda wanna reflect back on those loved ones in our lives, you know, whether it’s, you know, children, family members, spouse, grandparents, you know, it’s it’s that important piece and caring for each other, again, is one of the most important and fundamental things that we do as humans every day. And whether it’s, you know, yourself, your spouse, your kiddos, your parents, you know, wealthy is here to help. And on behalf of Mercer Advisors, And wealthy, I wanna thank you for joining today’s webinar, and I hope you all have a wonderful day. Thank you so much.

Thanks, everyone.