Inside Care Patrol: 

Jeff Walter (00:00)

Hi, this is Jeff Walter and welcome back to the podcast. Special guest today is Michael Lenkin. Michael is the Director of Business Development from Care Patrol of Northern Indianapolis. He’s an experienced business development manager with a proven track record of revenue growth, market expansion, and development of new referral relationships. Strong sales professional with a deep knowledge in consumer behavior and market research, and experienced presenter and negotiator.

 

Michael is with Care Patrol, as I said, and Care Patrol is interesting. They assist seniors and their families with the difficult task of identifying the most appropriate assisted living, independent living, memory care, or residential care facility in their area. The service is completely free or no cost to the clients as the franchisees are paid directly by the providers in their network. And so it’s a business that’s very high stakes for folks, very emotional. And I’m looking forward to learning a lot more about it.

 

And welcome to the podcast, Michael, and thank you for agreeing to participate. This should be a fun and educational experience.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(01:01)

Thanks, Jeff. I’m always looking for opportunities where I can add value. So hopefully you can get there today.

 

Jeff Walter (01:06)

All right. But I appreciate that. ⁓ first off, I, I, I always like to get to know, autobiographically, like, how did you end up where you’re at? most of us ended up where we are in, you know, by accident, but by divine accident, you know, we kind of like weaved our way left and right and ended up in a place we never thought we would be when we started our careers way back in the day. So, so tell everybody a little bit about yourself, how you ended up where you’re at.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(01:29)

for sure.

 

Jeff Walter (01:34)

and a little bit more about Care Patrol.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(01:34)

Yeah,

 

I appreciate that. I grew up on Indianapolis’ west side and, you know, I went to Purdue. I studied a couple different things. I just I like learning. I love school when it’s something that interests me. And, you know, I was on a track, different track record. But.

 

graduated in 2008 and in 2008, a couple different things were happening simultaneously at the financial crisis. So for us millennials about that time, it was rather difficult to find a job. And then my mom had a health setback and thank God she’s well today. like so many families out there, you I got handed discharge paperwork that talked about bathing my mom and at 22 with a history degree, it was a real shock.

 

to the paradigm that I viewed life through. So, you know, just the life experiences where, you know, seeing her be the primary caregiver for my grandma set me on a different path. Started getting my MBA at Knew that I didn’t want to work in retail or something else as valuable as those things are. It wasn’t the direction I wanted to go. And so when I had the opportunity to work for a in-home care company, it just resonated.

 

and I started working in senior care over 10 years ago. So I had the opportunity to learn a lot at that home care company and managed some programs, learned about how our healthcare system’s working with healthcare initiatives, creating outcomes is kind of one of the buzzwords and value-based care initiatives. And ultimately just resonated with things that we were doing here at Care Patrol, where I kind of saw they were…

 

They were already doing this thing that we were trying to create and spending a lot of time and money doing less effectively. So came on at Care Patrol four years ago and we’re moderately sized franchise for Care Patrol has over 200 locations in North America. We’re in the top 20 to 30. Actually, we just had our national conference and I’ve not gotten the debrief on where we rank, but that’s where we’ve trended.

 

over the last several years. We’ve been around about 10 years here in this market. And like you said, we’re out helping families. I think the shift in the paradigm we have over last four years has been towards a more of a healthcare focus or an extension of the healthcare industry. So a lot of the education I’m doing with healthcare providers, other stakeholders for the clients we serve is really centered around this idea of

 

how can we lean in and help their patients by creating better outcomes? So just a nuanced shift in how we approach things, but it’s been something that’s been more broadly adopted at CarePay.

 

Jeff Walter (04:18)

Yeah. So, so I, I’m looking forward to this conversation because it’s, it’s a little bit different, um, than what we usually do in that we’re a couple of things are really different. One is we’re taking it from the franchisees perspective, right? And so you’re a franchisee in the care patrol network in North Indianapolis. So that’s always, you know, haven’t done that before. So that’s a new perspective. But the other thing I’m looking forward to that’s really interesting is usually when you think of franchises.

 

I think a quick service restaurants, you know, low skill type of, ⁓ activities or, you know, the employees, but here we’ve got something really different, right? It’s like, it’s the opposite end of the spectrum of, of that in that, you have something that’s a cert, first off, it’s a service, not a, not a thing, right? It’s a service and it’s a very high stakes service.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(05:11)

Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (05:12)

And

 

the consumer, the client, the people that are involved in the purchase decision, they generally are ignorant of that industry. It’s generally something people don’t know much about. I know when my in-laws…

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(05:25)

Why would you

 

let us lean in and know anything about it if not for you?

 

Jeff Walter (05:28)

Oh, exactly.

 

Like, uh, you know, my in-laws who are, you know, unfortunately no longer with us, but. know, we entered into that world and it was like, well, when do you go to a nursing home? When do you go to assisted living? What’s independent living? What’s member? what are these things? What, what do those terms mean? What are they? What gets funded by whom who pays for what? Like, and you’re doing that at a time where your loved one is in distress. They can no longer, uh,

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(05:41)

What are those things you mean?

 

Jeff Walter (05:55)

You know, a lot of times it’s happening when they can no longer, you know, no longer live independently, right. And they need some support. And so it’s, it’s interesting because you’ve got a set of clients and their loved ones that need to be educated on the options. And it’s kind of, I mean, it’s really kind of remarkable on the other hand, on the one hand, that there are a tremendous amount of options that are catering to specific needs of people.

 

Right? And we’ll get into that. Yeah.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(06:24)

If you look, yeah, there’s

 

a lot of variation state to state, which is one of the things we’ve talked a little bit about just with the franchise model. There’s just a lot of variation. And even inside of Indianapolis, we have, you know, the greater Indiana territory. I there could be over

 

700 home care providers, there are hundreds of hospice providers, over 150 assisted living options in the greater Indianapolis area, there are hundreds of nursing homes in Indiana, and it’s paralyzing, I mean, to try to go out and figure that out on your own.

 

Jeff Walter (06:59)

Yeah. And so, so I’m looking forward to it. you know, actually there’s, there’s so many dimensions about this I’m looking forward to, right? One, I think just for people in general, any education that we can provide that you can, if I say we, I mean you, I’ll take credit, provide just on understanding this sector, because it’s type of thing that most people don’t have much knowledge about. But then if we look at it from a systemic

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(07:16)

That’s why.

 

Jeff Walter (07:25)

standpoint from a franchise franchisee, you’ve got clients that need to be educated. have advisors that are doing the matchmaking and they need to be educated. And you’re operating with a franchise system that has a certain set of values and processes. And so I would love to hear, I’d love to, I’d love to get into all that. Don’t know how much time you have, but we’ll, go into a bunch of rabbit holes. what, why don’t we start with the, with the client in mind and

 

help give us a quick education on somebody calls and says, help my mom can no longer live in her house. You know, she, for whatever reason she’s got, you know, and I don’t know what to do. would imagine that’s a common. So what, what’s the educational process? How do you guys go on, you know, educate them and, and in the process, you know, give us a little education on.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(08:10)

daily, powerfully.

 

Jeff Walter (08:20)

what the different types of facilities are and what one you would go into one or another and what the, you know, and that. So let’s start there and then work our way upstream.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(08:30)

If you’re really interested in this, I I think it’s a little lateral thinking, but I think it’s very similar to something called motivational interviewing. But ultimately our process of educating starts with educating ourselves about each client in kind of an old school way. We lean in and we really want to look at, we operate through a framework of social preferences, clinical needs, finances, and sometimes timing. What I mean by that is

 

Jeff Walter (08:55)

Okay.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(08:57)

You know, what’s important to you? How does, how do you want to live life or how does your loved one want to live life or how do you want them to live life? And so you might tell me multiple things are true on a scale of one to 10. How do we rank those? You know, like earlier today, someone was telling me like, oh, you know, it’s so great because my grandpa lives across the road within a mile of my dad. So he goes and visits that person every day.

 

Jeff Walter (09:12)

Okay.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(09:25)

for them, like that proximity, that location piece is weighted really heavily because he has that intention. Another person really wants the best care and we have to create a framework to define that. And location is less important. They’ll tell me, I’ll drive three hours, I don’t care. I’ll drive to Ohio if it gets mom the best care. And, you know, we don’t have to do that, but.

 

That paradigm and how you’re serving that person and educating them really changes depending upon how they self-score that. And I think the important thing to understand about that is just that in this healthcare space, so many of these outcomes that we’re asking hospital systems and other providers to generate are happening where the client will tell you they wanna stay at home.

 

And yet over six months, they continue to readmint to the hospital. They refuse to accept care. I had a program where we were giving free and home care to people and they wouldn’t take it. Like 60 % of the time they decline free and home health. And at the time I had kids at home, if someone had offered to come in and change diapers on my kids, make meals for them, do some laundry, they’d have to your arm off, right? Like it would, you gotta believe me. So it was a real, you know, I thought that the biggest barrier was

 

Jeff Walter (10:38)

Right.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(10:43)

finances and that wasn’t what proved out so you take someone like that and ask him okay but on scale one to now important is staying home to you you know and if we could wave the magic wand and you do anything with your life what would it be well I’d love to have coffee with someone at 10 a.m. every day and you know do whatever and I was getting one time to rank that higher so

 

Jeff Walter (11:02)

Right.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(11:07)

you know, not trying to disparage staying at home, just trying to illustrate that for different folks, something else might be a bigger priority. And so when we look back to, why aren’t we creating this healthcare outcomes? Because we didn’t understand what the real motivator was for this person. Then we look at clinical needs, right? So what are the barriers to the person living life that way? Someone who has Parkinson’s disease has a real different care outlook in the long run about things they’re going to need. They may be independent now.

 

But like, hey, how can we think about those things in the long term? Finances, I just think we lean in in a way that is simple but effective in the sense that we give people a tool. Financial advisors are great, I have one, but they’re there to really help you with mass wealth, not necessarily choose how to spend it. And there’s variation on that, I know, across different advisors, but our tool in a simple way helps someone who’s even pretty affluent.

 

Jeff Walter (11:53)

Mm-hmm.

 

All

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(12:04)

have the freedom to make a choice around or the visibility to make a choice on this decision. So someone might have, you know, at a client with $1.2 million in investment assets, they owned a home in a particular part of Indianapolis that, let’s just say the average sales price was about $660K in the last six months, and they made almost 10 grand a month in income.

 

from social securities, from pensions. It’s kind of a unique client in this sense. And the son was talking to me, know, mom and dad both had terminal illnesses, two-year prognosis, they had a lot of care needs. They wanted to stay at home though. But all he was doing was talking to me about assisted living. And so our tool kind of spits out at different price points, how long can a person private pay for them? Like, son, like, why are we talking about assisted living when you guys could probably stay at home? And he’s like, why?

 

I don’t think we can afford it even with those assets. And so one-on-one care for them was going to cost probably $350,000 a year. They could still afford that for six years without selling their home. So like it gave him the freedom to honor his parents wishes and pursue home care in a way that a lot of people can’t afford that, but it still lets us frame that conversation. So I say sometimes timing because

 

Jeff Walter (13:05)

Mm-hmm.

 

Right.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(13:25)

Oftentimes, A, B, and C can drive timing bucket, but sometimes it is a choice. you may implement a solution now or you may do it later. The earlier we have these conversations and work through this framework, the more likely that it’s a choice and less of a, we got to do this now because type situation.

 

Jeff Walter (13:45)

Well,

 

and the timing thing, that’s one of the things that happened with me personally was my mother-in-law went into rehab and came out and she could not live independently with my father-in-law. And so all of a sudden was like, timing drove everything, right? It’s like, she’s being discharged on Tuesday. She needs to go to someplace other than back to her home because my father-in-law cannot take care of her.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(14:06)

Totally.

 

Jeff Walter (14:13)

And then the same thing happened, you know, you know, six months later with my father-in-law, he, he had an act, you know, he slipped and fell and he had some chronic issues and, and he was not able to live independently anymore. And it was like, he’s being discharged Tuesday. And, know, like you get that notice, you know, like, what are we going to do? Right. And so for us, for me, it was like, it’s interesting. was listening to what you were saying and, uh, I wish somebody had laid it out the way you did.

 

Cause I was like, as I’m listening to you, I’m going, well, for me, was both my in-laws, it was timing because it was, they’re being discharged from a rehab facility on a certain day and they cannot go back to their home. And then the second was proximity. they lived, ⁓ three miles from my house and my wife was sick at the time, so I was taking care of her. And so, you know, to your point, like,

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(14:43)

Yeah, the framework for a…

 

Jeff Walter (15:08)

proximity was everything. Like I cannot go two hours down the road. You know, like, and so, and, and, and then that dominated the other things. It was just, it’s interesting the way you framed it. So that framing, is that a care patrol kind of framework or.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(15:20)

Indeed,

 

indeed. And I think it’s a bit unique to us. think we tend to be the market leader on that space. there’s probably some similarities, but people tend to model things.

 

close to what we do. I think the education piece for the consumer, for their families, for the stakeholders, the healthcare industry is like the lack of visibility and just how nuanced that can become and how complicated it can become because just taking someone who has less assets, less income, they might have a choice. So they might actually be able to go home, right, with in-home care.

 

Jeff Walter (16:00)

Right.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(16:02)

but in doing so they might choose to spend down some of their assets they have, take a reverse mortgage on an asset, for example, or spend down cash. There could be options that they could move into that require a two year private pay period. So the choice becomes the timing choice and why it starts earlier for that person is like, look, you can move now, you can move later. Maybe you don’t move at all, but if you choose to move later,

 

Jeff Walter (16:07)

Mm-hmm.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(16:27)

just know that if you do it this way and you’re spending down assets or you protect them and you’re not going to use them anymore, you just eliminate some of these choices. I don’t necessarily care what you do. I’m just here to educate you on what that choice is ahead of time. So you feel good about the choice you make. And so, you know, not everyone’s going to choose to do that and that’s okay. I just don’t want you to come back to me in three years and say, Hey, we did this. Now show me what, which one was it? Well, that option is no longer.

 

relevant for you.

 

Jeff Walter (16:58)

Well,

 

so, you know, going back to the, know, so it’s really interesting because it’s again, it’s this market that people don’t educate themselves on until they have a need. just kind of, we started with the client and you kind of laid out a nice framework and you were going, you know, social and financial and a number of other, you know, and care, you know, what level of care do they need and assistance in that.

 

which was a very interesting, a very neat framework for educating the client. Right. Now I take it that then if we start going upstream a little, the person at the care patrol as a franchisee doing that is, an advisor of some sort, right? As a care advisor. Is that the right term? I got that right.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(17:44)

Senior

 

care advisors, the AI on Indeed in places doesn’t like that yet, but that’s what we call it.

 

Jeff Walter (17:50)

Okay, senior care

 

advisors, right? So.

 

How, like I got to imagine that that’s a difficult, well, he just said, yeah, and he doesn’t like that. Okay. That was a delayed laugh on my part, but yeah, like I was going to say, how do you find people like that?

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(18:06)

You put that

 

in need and it tries to bring me a financial advisor.

 

Jeff Walter (18:11)

Right.

 

So, so, but, but somehow you’re, you know, as a, as a franchisee, you’re hiring these senior care advisors. I would, I can only imagine that the, the, the rare candidate is already knowledgeable on all the things that you just, you know, that you just said, which, you know, I, like, how does that new hire that new senior care advisor?

 

at your franchise, how do they become knowledgeable? Because it’s really interesting because there’s state law. So a care patrol in Indiana is going to be different than a, you know, there’s going to be slight variance in a care patrol in Michigan because what an assisted living facility can do in Indiana is slightly different than Michigan and same with memory and independent living and all that. There’s different financing, especially

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(18:55)

Totally.

 

Jeff Walter (19:08)

Like you said, are you high net worth, low net worth? Do you have long-term care? Are you eligible for Medicaid? One of the things that blew me away here in Michigan was my mother-in-law was able to get qualified for Medicaid because Michigan lets the one spouse transfer all their assets to the other spouse and then impoverishing themselves and…

 

being eligible for Medicaid, but it’s part of the Michigan Medicaid. Like we had hired an elder care attorney. He’s like, this is what you do, but don’t, but don’t, but don’t, but don’t. And then she qualifies. I’m like, but still keeps all the assets. she was, yeah. So, you know, the advisors, like you’ve got the finance, you’ve got the care, like all the things that you just went through. How does that, you hire a new advisor.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(19:33)

Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (20:00)

How do they become educated so they can knowledgably advise a client? How does that happen?

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(20:08)

Yeah, there’s

 

a couple different strategies. mean, one, I mean, my advisors on my team, and I’m not the franchise owner, but, you know, we all weigh in on this because we are a small team. And I think it becomes so challenging to add a new person to the team if we don’t all have buy-in. Less than we learned along the way. But my counterparts tend to be social workers, people with some industry knowledge and expectation. But it’s tricky because we oftentimes are changing their paradigm a little bit.

 

about what care capabilities are for assisted living, for a home care company, versus in nursing home. So they have to have some flexibility. But I will say that one of the things, because this service isn’t regulated by the state of Indiana, it’s probably not regulated in most states yet. ⁓ And so what’s the teeth for consumers kind of aligns with this question around how do we train them?

 

Jeff Walter (20:36)

OK.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(21:01)

So Care Patrol, my understanding is requires the at least minimum, the Care Patrol franchisee to attain this certified senior advisor certification, which is a national accreditation. gives us all baseline knowledge on some key healthcare takeaways. And I mean, it’s something we put our advisors through here at North Indy.

 

Jeff Walter (21:13)

Okay.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(21:25)

And it’s difficult enough that someone who’s practicing as a social worker in a long-term care environment and in home care environments in California and some other places around the country, she still studied for months. And it wasn’t just this layup thing that she had to do, a box to check it. It really took an investment of time and effort to achieve. if it simultaneously gives us a code of ethics. And so if somehow

 

And that’s part of the laws and the ethics that we have to learn to do this job effectively. And so it gives consumers some teeth as well, because if we ever lost that, we could lose the franchise. ⁓

 

Jeff Walter (22:02)

So is

 

that a, is Care Patrol the franchisor? Are they the ones doing the certification or is it third party certification?

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(22:11)

It’s

 

a, I believe it’s a third party. think care patrols and this is anecdotally, you know, my, my sense of things, but you know, I do think care patrol was implement involved in the creation of it, but I’ve seen some of our competitors go out and do the same thing. And frankly, I see some other, not substitute products, but like, um, other related services go out and get that certification as well. You know, people not necessarily trying to do what we’re doing, but some of the people we refer to, like,

 

Jeff Walter (22:17)

Okay.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(22:40)

maybe a real estate agent might do that or some other kind of similar services.

 

Jeff Walter (22:44)

Okay.

 

So,

 

so, you know, so we’re talking about training here, right? That was training impact podcast. And, um, so, so you’re bringing on an advisor, they tech, they, they generally have some type of social work experience in the industry. So it’s, they’re not just coming out of left field, but, uh, but then care patrol has worked the franchise or sounds like they have worked with a.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(22:52)

That’s what we do.

 

Jeff Walter (23:15)

third party certification agency, kind of like a software development company would work with the project management Institute to get certified project managers, Very different level of stakes. That’s a much lower stakes type of thing. I know that like, so a lot of the larger, a lot of

 

industry organizations will sit on boards and be part of a certifying agency and it will be independent. It’s an interesting strategy, right? Rather than try and build the care patrol certification. And then it gets narrowed to just care patrol, but then your competitors don’t, it’s like, no, here’s something we as an industry need. And so you’ll get the care patrols of the world and

 

And some of their competitors to cooperate and sit on those boards and say, this is what a senior care advisor needs to know. And then, and then bake it into their product. it sounds like they, they’re influencing that, but it’s an independent board that’s doing the certification. And then, but then they’re saying, we need our franchisees. Their advisors need to get this certification. Is that kind of.

 

You know, it’s part of the, part of the franchise agreement type of thing. Like, okay. And then that’s how they ensure that their brand, the, the, the typical advisor has some base level of knowledge is they’re using this third party accreditation to ensure that, you know, and and then they, okay. So that’s the base that, and you said that’s national. So it’s not saying this is what we do in Indiana. This is what we do in.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(24:27)

Yeah.

 

Totally.

 

Jeff Walter (24:55)

Michigan. So how do your advisors get the, okay, well, this is what, you know, assisted living is in Indiana, which is slightly different than Michigan. And so you get those edge cases where if you would in Michigan, you’d go to a memory care facility, but if you were in Indiana, you’d go to assisted living facility, same person, but you know, slightly different places where the state, especially on things like that, that are more regulated as opposed to home care, hospice and, ⁓

 

know, independent living, you know, it’s like, ⁓ no, that that level of care requires this type of like, how do how do the how does the advisor get that that piece of knowledge?

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(25:34)

If you’re

 

managing a tech industry, if you’re managing some other things, then you’re gonna look at our process and on the face of it you’re gonna think, my gosh, this is not efficient and how are they doing this? The answer to your question is really the old fashioned way. We get out and we get out of the office. And then to the day when we’re providing the service.

 

That’s what actually makes us competitive against some substitute products that on the face of it, try to offer a service like what we do, but they don’t have boots on the ground people doing what we do. we’re going out and we’re touring every facility in our area. We’re meeting with not all the home care companies, but a very strategic selection of them.

 

We have contracts at over 90 % of the facilities in our area. We have contracts with those dedicated providers. And then we have additional resources that we meet with in person. And so it’s kind of exhaustive, but our care advisors go in and they see the buildings, sometimes daily, certain facilities or weekly. Because they start out with the training, they start shadowing on tours with real clients, and they start taking real clients.

 

Jeff Walter (26:35)

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(26:44)

So we’re out in these buildings getting real time feedback about what’s happening. We get lots of feedback then from our past clients. help over 600, 700 people a year here in Annapolis. And we get all this anecdotal data from them that we can then use to better our service. So it’s kind of twofold. Our training method is to get out of the office and go out and be where these clients are getting served and learn kind of on the spot.

 

⁓ But that’s also what makes us really effective because we have this data and maybe you can put some stuff into Google. AI can give you better information recently than it did six months ago, but it doesn’t know these details that we know because it can’t physically go there and see it.

 

Jeff Walter (27:20)

Hmm.

 

Well, I mean, that’s really interesting because at the end of day, you’re doing a matchmaking service. And so, you know, like I’m me and I need some type of care or my mom or my dad needs some type of care. it’s unique. What they need is unique. Their situation is unique. Their care level is unique. Like the things you went through. So like everybody wants to stay at home, except you like to have coffee at 10 o’clock. Well, if

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(27:34)

Kind of, yeah.

 

totally.

 

Jeff Walter (27:55)

depending on your situation and your level of care, being home might be synonymous with no social interaction. ⁓

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(28:06)

You

 

have to be very intentional as a family organization to create an environment at home. You can do it. It takes a very intent, like someone who’s taken a Lynchione frantic family book and applied it, like how are we going to be ultra intentional with our family unit? You can do it. But a lot of families aren’t able to or can’t do that. So.

 

Jeff Walter (28:14)

Great.

 

Or even

 

if you can, there’s also the independence of the individual. And I think that like one of the things that you hit earlier.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(28:38)

Totally.

 

Can’t be

 

over ahead and drop her off at a facility. We don’t do that. We don’t kidnap people so Yeah, yeah

 

Jeff Walter (28:45)

Well, well, no, no, not, not the kidnapping, but I mean, like you can do the intentional family thing. Right. But mom

 

just wants to be able to walk down to the cafe and sit and have coffee without 16 family members having to coordinate. Like it’s, it’s part of being independent, right? Like I am an independent adult and I want to be able to do this. I can’t drive, but I can walk down to the cafe that’s in the independent living facility.

 

I can go down to the bridge game that’s down there. don’t like that’s one of things I saw, you know, personally was, and I think that’s some of that reluctance that you were talking about earlier is like, look, these are people that have raised families that have had jobs that have been independent their entire lives. And now they’re not able to be independent. And it’s a huge, they want to maintain as much independence as possible. And anyway,

 

Not to control that nap point.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(29:43)

There’s a

 

lot of counterintuitive kind of pieces to this. And that’s one of the things that we try to educate around is that by bringing in services or moving into a facility, you’re actually bringing yourself back into independence. There’s different ways to package it, but it does take a load off your primary caregiver, whether that’s a spouse or a kid or just a church member. They’re still going to be involved. There’s still a role for them to be that.

 

Jeff Walter (30:00)

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(30:12)

It’s just gonna look different.

 

Jeff Walter (30:13)

Well, and, getting back to the training thing, it’s, you know, it’s interesting because, okay, so you’ve got this national certification and then the franchise or care patrol is saying, okay, I want my advisors to get this certification. So as a franchisee, that’s part of what you’re doing, right? You’re getting that. Your advisors are getting that base certification, but then it’s interesting because. Yeah. One of the challenges of, of franchise training in general or partner training in general.

 

it from the, you know, from the franchise or perspective is, well, everything’s about the product, right? I can’t go by courses off the shelf, right? So here I’ve got a kind of an off the shelf certification. gives me a base, gives my franchisee staff a base knowledge, but my product is still very specific to me. And what’s really interesting when you’re saying getting out there, it’s from a

 

learning perspective.

 

There is no course you can buy or build that says this facility does this, that facility does that. Like perfect example, perfect example. I’ll use my own personal example. My mother-in-law, she went back home for one night, back to her rehab and then into a nursing home. The reason she went into a nursing home is she was bed bound. She needed a two person transfer.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(31:31)

Mm.

 

Jeff Walter (31:33)

to get out of bed, to get in a chair. And I went to, know, and I talked to a bunch of people and everyone was like, oh, assisted living, one person transfer. If you need two person transfer, you can need to go to a nursing home. That’s the data I got, right? Fast forward six months, my father-in-law ends up needing to go into assisted living. We find a place for him.

 

You know, it checks all those other boxes you were saying. He gets in there. He starts asking the medical director about transferring his wife into his room, to his apartment. And, and, ⁓ and, he goes, it comes up to me and he goes, they said they can do it. And I’m like, you know, okay. Sure. And anyway, I go meet the medical director and I go, well, you know, this is her situation, right? She needs this, this, this, and this. And she, she needs a two person transfer. She’s bed bound. And the medical director goes.

 

⁓ we do that. You know, the husband over in 35A, he’s bed bound and the wife over in 62B, I’m like, I thought that assisted living facilities didn’t do two person transfers because that’s what everybody told me. so the beautiful news about that is we were able to transfer my mother-in-law to live with my father-in-law and they were able to live together until she passed.

 

which was so much better than him being in one facility, her being in another. Like it was, it was a beautiful way to, to, know, unfortunately they passed, but end of life, right? They, they worked together in the same place. And, you know, you could just see how much it brought joy to them.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(33:09)

Yeah, and then that’s why I think working with someone in this space, whether it’s care patrol or a senior care advisor from anywhere that has a similar paradigm, know, ideally we would minimize the amount of times you move. I mean, it used to be nothing when I was working home care.

 

to hear from a family who’ve been at seven different facilities. And I think the process to move into assisted living probably varies state to state some as well, but generally speaking, You know, there’s a deposit, there’s a review of medical records, there’s a medical assessment, and you know, there’s some…

 

Jeff Walter (33:41)

Mm-hmm.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(33:47)

I’ve seen more families can be told something, but to your point earlier, your paradigm that you’re viewing this situation through is so far removed. You can be told, you know, well, we don’t do two person transfers, but here’s why it’s not going to be a problem for you. And you as the consumer, like, okay, they can do two person transfers. I’ve been there in fairness to that salesperson. They said they can’t yet what you heard was something different. And so that happens.

 

Jeff Walter (34:10)

Yeah. Well, I had,

 

I had not checked that particular facility. What I had done is I had gone to other facilities and they were like, we only do one person, we only do one person. And then I talked to people and, and, and people that were in the industry and, and, and they said, Oh, you know, they, they don’t do to, you know, assisted living doesn’t do. And my, I was going with that whole thing was back to the training and educating the advisors. Cause you know, some, some folks might.

 

take what you just said and dismiss it as, they’re not really doing training. They’re, you know, kind of boots on the ground type of thing. But the thing I find fascinating about that approach, I’m just looking at the training approach for a franchise or franchisee model and trying to abstract that from here is you got the franchise or saying, I need everybody to have this baseline knowledge. But then there’s so much idiosyncratic knowledge, not just within the state, but within the particular geography that you’re

 

That, and, and, and, and, you know, it’s one of those, once you’ve seen one facility, you’ve seen one facility, right? They’re, they’re lumped into these categories. But what I learned is they, it changes and what they, what they’re capable of doing is, you know, varies a lot. And so getting out and going and talking to facility, a facility, having the advisors get out and go talk and build relationships with all these facilities.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(35:14)

Totally.

 

It changes too.

 

Jeff Walter (35:36)

They build that idiosyncratic knowledge. a, it’s a, it’s like a Socratic way of going out and learning, you know, that it’s really, you know, it’d be hard to capture that into a course, let’s say, right? Because there’s so many different, it, it’s, it’s an interesting way of attacking the problem. You know, like it’s, it’s interesting because as I’ve been doing this podcast, I’ve been talking to a bunch of people about it. Well, how do you educate people? How do you educate?

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(35:43)

Totally.

 

Jeff Walter (36:06)

And there’s so many interesting ways of doing it that are not necessarily formal training programs, right? Like I’m listening to what you’re saying and I’m going, they’re going out, they’re building relationships. They’re getting a sense of what is the right fit in this facility versus this other facility. And at the same time, capturing all this information about the particulars, right? That, and that’s where I was going with my father-in-law story, right? It’s like, if, if there was an advisor.

 

who had, if I had happened to talk to an advisor who happened to have toured all the facilities within our area, they would have said, your mother-in-law needs a two person assist. If you’re in a position where you can afford assisted living and pay out of pocket, here are the four places that would do a two person transfer, right? And all the other things too, right?

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(36:57)

Totally.

 

Jeff Walter (37:01)

But it’s interesting, I’m looking again from an educational, how did they acquire the knowledge standpoint? It’s interesting.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(37:06)

I think from a training perspective too, like I look at what I do, not as like sales, like a four letter word, but I look at it as educating your training, our referral partners when I go out and work with them, because I think one of the things I get asked a lot, like, isn’t the hospital helping me with this? Or I’m a, you know, I’m talking to someone who’s a healthcare professional in a hospital system and they’re thinking like, well, I’ve got this. Why do I need you?

 

And so like, if you are a manager of ⁓ a related entity, might be thinking, well, why wouldn’t I just train my staff to do what they do and control that whole process? And it’s the same reason we’re so effective is that if you’re a social worker who makes referrals like this in a hospital system, you don’t leave the hospital. You don’t know what’s going on out there. And it’s beyond a full-time job for one person to keep apprised of all this information. So.

 

Jeff Walter (37:53)

Right, right.

 

huh.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(38:04)

And at end of the day, they have other jobs that they have to learn and things they have to do and be apprised of. So it’s a real win-win win. It’s a win for the facility that pays us because we bring them this right fit patient that’s been educated on what they can and can’t do in a more effective way. It’s a win for the consumer because they don’t have to spin their wheels like you described, trying to find the right place through trial and error. And then it’s a win for the health system because

 

Jeff Walter (38:12)

Yeah.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(38:32)

Essentially, I just took a load of responsibility off of their employees’ plates. They don’t have to worry about training that person. Like what they need trained on, I do for free. And then we actually do service for free too. So it’s kind of counterintuitive. Like it sounds crazy, but it really works.

 

Jeff Walter (38:40)

Any second.

 

Yeah.

 

No, but it makes total sense. Cause when we first started talking about it, it was, it was interesting because it really is in my brain, in my P brain, it’s, it’s a matchmaking service, right? It’s like, you’re trying to find the right fit. Right. And the beautiful thing about our society is we have a lot of different options and, and going through that list that you were like,

 

social care, finance, et cetera, et cetera, Well, no matter how you prioritize those things, I guarantee you, and timing, no how you prioritize those things, I guarantee you, can find a half a dozen options, right? And therefore…

 

Well, how do you how do you how which ones do you pick? Like you got the four like you rattled off the numbers in Northern Indiana. You’re like, there’s hundreds of these and hundreds of those and 500 of these. Okay, which one do I send mom to? Right. Or or none, because there’s another hundred that will come to my house. Right. And like, and, and so, yeah, it’s it’s I look at it as a matchmaking and

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(39:45)

So,

 

Good one.

 

Jeff Walter (39:58)

And the interesting thing about the matchmaking and again, I keep bringing it back to the training because that’s what we do. But the matchmaking is really about getting that idiosyncratic knowledge and being able to get, I like the model. You’re getting this baseline knowledge from this national certification, right? And then you’re getting the idiosyncratic knowledge.

 

by going out to the marketplace and going, you know, it’s like, I picturing a matchmaker going, so what do you like to see in a husband? know, like, you know, what do you like?

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(40:39)

We are

 

senior living geeks. We’ve become these, and to your point, it is a continual education. The other thing I think that national accreditation does is it asks for some continual education every year to maintain that certification. So from like a system setting, there is like continual update.

 

But then locally, that eosyncratic information, I as the director of business development, think, you know, the stages were, know, Care Patrol developed that franchise system, implemented that baseline certification, you know, went into franchise owners. Now they got to know the boots on the ground, educating themselves on their area. But really that third stage was growing that team, having multiple advisors and having a director of business development or some other outward facing entity.

 

because for a couple reasons, one, I can help with that ongoing education. So again, like, I mean, I am a salesperson, that’s how God made me. But my paradigm for that is maybe a little bit different. And so, you know, how am I bringing value to my team besides just creating a pipeline of stuff coming in? So I have to go out and truly train the healthcare system that refers to us.

 

to make my teammates more effective and create an environment where the client is able to get educated in a way that isn’t disruptive. So just for example, you know, like I could go into hospital and get a referral from someone and the client’s been told, look, I want you to talk to Jeff. His mom’s fallen and now she’s a two person assist. I want you to help her find a nursing home, which we don’t do, but that’s the reply. They’ve already been told, hey,

 

Jeff Walter (42:16)

Hmm.

 

All right.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(42:25)

Jeff, your mom, your mother-in-law needs a nursing home. So I get to come, my care advisor otherwise has to come in and say, that’s not actually true. And here’s why, if depending upon, you your answers to a whole bunch of questions, right? So for me, now I’m going in and educating now the social worker, and then it leads to the next person in the value of the physician. And then some other random person in the hospital that I didn’t realize, you know.

 

Jeff Walter (42:34)

Right? Right?

 

Right, right, right, right.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(42:53)

talked about this, like a not random, but like a physical therapist. Now all these people have to be educated that well, so reality is in Indiana, they regulate these products on a framework. And so there’s just a lot of education that I’m having to break down years of misconceptions they’ve built up and in a real boots on the ground kind of way.

 

Jeff Walter (43:13)

Yeah, well, and I think in that, going back to what we first said, I, you know, even with people that are in the industry, you know, at the, at the hospitals or at the rehab centers, the nurses and the social workers there, it’s, just like, uh, they, they just know the, they tend to, they tend just to know the, the category, but not the particular.

 

You know, you know what saying? Like, you know, they have a predefined understanding of what a nursing home is, what a memory care unit is, what an independent care and, ⁓ and assisted living and, not that this particular assisted living place or this particular independent care or this particular hospice or home hospice or this, you know, these particular guys do these particular things, which is a better fit for you.

 

And I really like it. It’s really a win, win, win. that’s where I get, I keep getting back to the matchmaking because each client is, is, has, has individual preferences and each facility is slightly different. And then it, and then it’s part of, you know, it’s, it’s funny. I never thought about it, but this, when we first started talking, but I was talking to somebody else, completely different type of franchise, right? Completely different.

 

It was the batteries plus guy, right? These guys are, you know, training technicians to put batteries and phones and, and, and computers and yeah, it’s so completely different, right? Humans machines. And, but the interesting thing there is, um, was what the, you know, one of the things they found is the better they train the people, the more satisfied they were.

 

with the franchise and the less turnover the franchisee had, right? And I’m…

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(45:07)

We recently hired someone

 

and she’s young. So I think she probably skews towards a demographic that changes jobs more frequently, right? And we’re like three weeks in, I don’t feel like we’ve trained her enough. We don’t feel like we’ve trained her enough. And she’s like, my gosh, this is the most best training I’ve ever gotten at any of the jobs I’ve done. And you know, it’s a small sample size because she’s young, but it’s like, boy, it’s like, my gosh, it’s kind of scary.

 

Jeff Walter (45:34)

Well, but the cool thing is I think you get a, I think you guys get a twofer. It would be really interesting to see the data on this, right? I think you guys get a twofer because if you’re getting that base level certification knowledge, and then you as a franchisee within the franchise system are systematically going out and going, go to this facility, educate yourself, go to this facility, build a relationship, educate yourself, build a relationship, educate yourself. You’re getting all the idiosyncratic knowledge.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(45:34)

⁓

 

Jeff Walter (46:03)

it’d be really interesting to see the franchisee turnover, right? Vis-a-vis, but then also from the matchmaking perspective, you know, again, and you hit it about 15 minutes ago, you want to minimize the number of times that the client switches facilities, right? It’s very disruptive. It diminishes their quality of life, right? You want them to get into the right facility that

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(46:23)

Absolutely.

 

Jeff Walter (46:31)

meets those needs you laid out. And so having a better educated advisor that can tease out the multi-dimensional needs of the client.

 

combined with having a very in-depth understanding of the particular facilities in that area, in that geography, allows them to make a better match, which it’d be interesting to see research data on this. Does that lead to a higher satisfaction on the client and their family ⁓ versus folks that don’t go through that process? Right?

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(46:49)

very nice.

 

Totally.

 

Totally. I mean, there’s no

 

perfect building. I you’re dealing with people, but I think, I mean, that’s absolutely, and some of that I can’t totally share all of because, that data is why, like you said, it’s a twofer. mean, absolutely. We know that to be true. And that’s part of why.

 

my pitch to providers is in the first place, right? And I mean, I think if you understand activity-based cost accounting and maybe this audience is gonna understand that better, right? That’s the language I would speak to a facility. Like, why do we need you? I’m like, well, go look at your data for what it costs you to move someone in and then move them out in a month.

 

It’s crazy, you know, so but hey, we’ll bring you someone that that stays and is more effective.

 

Jeff Walter (47:56)

And

 

that’s the big cost items, but then there’s also the cost of the client whose family is not happy with the match. One, they’re not happy and the client’s not happy. So that’s just a bad thing to start with. But two, they’re going to consume a lot more time and energy of your staff because they’re not happy.

 

And they want to, and they want to be happy. So they’re going to try and take your square and make a circle out of it. Right. And they’re going to, you know, like, like, you know, because it’s a mismatch, right. And so they’re going to want to try and morph you the facility to what they want and you’re going to push back, but it’s going to consume a lot of time and energy, time and energy, which, can, which, you know, costs money. And it’s, you know, it’s the, so you get to, it’s the, it’s the two things, right. Like the.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(48:43)

Absolutely.

 

Jeff Walter (48:52)

The extreme example is they switch facilities and switch vendors. And it’s what you said on the cost of moving in and moving out. But then there’s the soft cost of it’s just a bad fit. it’s changing the culture of this facility because you’ve got some unhappy people there. so compare it to something else.

 

I talked to a gentleman from a franchise sales organization. And so they have franchise and it was, it was a matchmaker, but it was a franchise or franchisee matchmaking. Right. So their, their business was bringing new perspective, owner franchise owners into the fold. Right. So they’ve got a bunch of brands, franchise or as they represent, and they’re out there saying, sitting there going, Hey, Mike, you know, you’re interested in being an owner of franchise.

 

And they have their rubric, right? Well, what do you like to do? What are you interested in? What are your resources? And then based on this, here’s the franchise ors I would suggest for you. And it’s a free service to you. like it’s, you wouldn’t think these two things are the same, but they’re very similar from a model perspective. It’s a free service to you because they’re getting paid by the franchise or the interesting thing we talk when we got into talking, we’ve gotten to education and all that kind of stuff.

 

was it was the same thing. A better match leads to less turnover of the franchisee and a happier, more satisfied set of franchisees. And so it’s the same thing here, but it’s with the client and the facility. You’re educating your advisors so they have all this knowledge, very idiosyncratic, so that you can make a better match.

 

So that the facility has a better fit client and the client has a higher satisfaction experience, which especially at that point is, and now we get back to the reality of the service, that translates into a higher quality of life for the individuals and for their families. you know, and which is like heartwarming.

 

I mean, it sounds cold and calculated the way we’re talking about it, but when you bring it back into the human, it’s like, it’s heartwarming because they’re able to maximize their quality of life.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(51:13)

And I think when you look at other industries and different things like, you know, hearing it, like talked about that way. I I do think you run the risk of thinking, you know, this sounds like a computer program, you know, with if statements that are nested and like, if this is true and this is true, then, then this is the output. This is what we’re going to do. And I’ve looked real hard, you know, you asked me before we were talking about where do I see this going in the future? And I mean, I think.

 

⁓ you know, AI is a real thing that that’s on our radar. How do we implement that? How do we use that? I still think for some of the same reasons, right? Like we’re somewhat protected in the sense that like some of this niche information, you’re just, it’s probably not going to be available in the avenues AI has to educate itself, at least in the near term. but I do think it’s probably going to make us more efficient. I mean, I think when we look at our franchise size, we’re probably going to be smaller than we might.

 

then if not for that. I think it’s gonna be something we’re gonna be able to use internally. I’m really excited about it. know, during COVID, if we had another, some other things you kind of cued me on as we talked to were, you other things like augmented reality or virtual reality. I mean, I think kind of holistically to your point about the numbers of things out there, there are so many solutions that are senior focused right now.

 

There’s lots of neat ideas out there being brought to market every day. Like it’s like drinking from a fire hose, even for us. So we are trying to stay at least what’s on the periphery. What’s something that we can use to add to our portfolio for our clients to help create a better outcome, even if it’s something that’s going to be pro bono for us to refer, which is okay. It’s about creating that outcome and creating value. but I do think if, you know, ⁓ virtual tours online that

 

may become more prevalent with some of those tools, but it’s not something that I’m seeing right now.

 

Jeff Walter (53:05)

Well,

 

I think, and I agree with you. think there’s a lot of tools and like the virtual, and I think the AI helps will eventually help because you can ask it questions that I think at the. It’s those that framework that you’re talking about and then getting a good cultural fit, right? Like, and I, you know, and it’s like the same, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s interesting. I’m sorry. I’m just pre-associating. must be like, you know, Tuesday.

 

But it’s also, you know, it’s the same advice I give people like when they’re, when they’re looking for a job, right? It’s like, well, part of the job is the, what you just said. It’s like, okay, there’s, you know, these particulars, like what’s the, what’s it like, what’s the work you’re doing? But then there’s also just the cultural, right? It’s like, is that a fit with the type of person you are with the, with the value system that you have? Cause if it is, you’re going to be much happier.

 

Even if the actual work that you do is not spot on with what’s, you know, brings you at maximum joy, as opposed to going into an environment where it’s just culturally a misfit, but you get to do the exact task that you like. And it, ⁓ and, and there’s so many things like that, that are, are fits. It’s that, it’s that matchmaking stuff fit. And a lot of that boils down into what I’ll just call cultural. And that’s a really hard thing.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(54:14)

Absolutely.

 

Jeff Walter (54:27)

I think the AI could get you a lot of the bits and bytes and stuff and what’s it like there. And you can be better educated and you can, and you can go see the facility from your own. But, but, but it’s hard to get a sense of what the facility is like without actually stepping into it. Right. I mean, so you can, you can, you know, now that virtual tour is much better than here’s a brochure with a couple of pictures. Right. Or here’s, here’s a website that has a bunch of pictures, but

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(54:43)

Absolutely.

 

Absolutely.

 

Jeff Walter (54:54)

But you know, there’s that, there’s that human and especially in the service that you guys are providing. It’s such a high stakes service because it’s about somebody’s quality of life. And so it’s really cool. So it’s really cool. So that, Hey, that, ⁓ we’re right. Just see, we’ve been talking for a while now. I’m having a blast. ⁓ Well, and I’m learning a lot. I, I.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(55:06)

Absolutely.

 

Yeah, that was.

 

Jeff Walter (55:21)

I sound like a broken record. love doing this because I’ve so much and I’ve learned so much from you, Michael. So thank you so much. Is there anything else that you want to share with the audience before we ⁓ wrap up or any thoughts?

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(55:35)

No, mean, if you know, if people have questions, I’m happy to make myself available. You know, we I am narrowly focused on North Indy, but being blessed to work for an awesome franchise system. Do you think we’ve you’ve got relationships with many of our other franchises and have never encountered one that wasn’t great to work with? you know, if you’re not in in the North Indianapolis market, chances are

 

across 200 different locations, there’s someone that can reach out and help you. More rural locations are a little trickier. Sometimes we don’t directly operate, but I’m still happy to have conversations around that, try to arm you with some baseline knowledge. then, because if the most important thing is to stay in that rural area, you may have one choice and that’s what it is. But if that’s the most important thing to you, great. But if it’s not, then sometimes that’s where the Care Patrol franchises can come into play.

 

Jeff Walter (56:22)

All right.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(56:29)

But yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (56:29)

Yeah. Well, if somebody

 

did want to get ahold of you or care patrol of and the North, Northern Indianapolis, sorry. what, what would, what would they do? How does, how does somebody get ahold of you or care patrol Northern Indianapolis?

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(56:42)

Yeah, so they just give our office a call or reach out to me directly. I’m happy to get my contact info. I’m not sure how this all goes out, but there’s a lot of it in the chat. We’re happy to do that.

 

Jeff Walter (56:54)

Wait,

 

Yeah,

 

we can put that in the, in the notes section and all that. So it’ll be out in the notes. Well, Michael, thank you. Thank you so much for your time and for educating me, educating the audience. I think it was really interesting because, ⁓ on the one hand, I learned more about that whole industry sector, which is something that, you know, knock on wood. we, yeah, we all live long enough to need those services, right? ⁓

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(57:25)

Amen.

 

Jeff Walter (57:26)

Amen. but, but, and, and, and, help our loved ones, but, also then kind of extrapolating from that general lessons, it’s a interesting training model of that national certification for a third party and then boots on the ground to, to learn more about the idiosyncratic options available within a particular geography. And so it’s a really neat way of getting, getting that knowledge to the advisors.

 

and then getting the advisor knowledge out to the clients. So thank you so much for all your time. I really appreciate it.

 

Michael Lamkin of Care Patrol(58:01)

Likewise, thank you so much for giving me the opportunity and I hope you have a blessed week.

 

Jeff Walter (58:05)

Thank you. And for all you folks out there, thanks for tuning in and listening. We really appreciate your support and have a great day.