Elder Care Resources
Frey ElderCare, Inc. is a certified member of the Aging Life Care Association (Formerly NAPGCM), the National Association of Social Workers, and Care Manager Society of America..
Care Manager assessments and home visits may take place anywhere throughout The Bronx and Manhattan regions of New York City. Call for FREE consultation today: 1-646-864-4745
Sharon Frey, LMSW, CCM
Care Manager Bio
My Story and Mission: Why I founded Frey ElderCare, Inc.
The current climate of long term care is rapidly changing. Seniors need advocates who posses a strong knowledge base of the complex care delivery systems impacting their health. Contrary to popular belief, Medicare does not cover most health and home care services for older adults. Medicaid does. As a result, Medicaid has become much easier to access by NY's middle income elderly. It just requires proper planning. Often, clients seek my consultation to establish pooled income trusts, obtain Medicaid, enroll into an appropriate MLTC and secure quality home care services. Upper income clients prefer my assistance with linkages to private sector services. New York is resource rich, and offers a wide array of quality, private pay home care, dementia care and integrative technologies for the home. Care management consult may be short and episodic, such as crisis intervention, seeking immediate resolution. In most cases, however, care management remains ongoing. This is because a majority of my clients, especially the family members who live far from their aging relative's home, prefer that their loved one remain closely monitored by a professional in the Aging field.
As a Licensed Social Worker in the State of New York, I have worked in community based social services for over a decade. I have worked on inter-disciplinary medical teams with The Visiting Nurse Service of New York and Isabella Care at Home. I have served hundreds of older adults as a field case manager with New York City's Department for the Aging. My contributions as an instructor and training designer has advanced the Care Management Certification program at Brookdale Center of Aging. And, as a Director of community outreach at the Bronx Jewish Community Council, I have collaborated with area politicians to educate thousands of seniors and family caregivers about advanced care planning. Specialized in the field of Aging, and trained to counsel clients facing great adversity, I bring highly skilled, hands on, and effective advocacy for my clients seeking comprehensive, and efficient, long-term care coordination.
Over the years, I have grown very familiar with the limitations of health and social services available to community residing elders. I have documented patterns of unmet home care needs, inadequate medical service coordination, and the many cultural and mental health barriers to service use. Barriers remain in both private and public sector services to seniors. I am particularly gripped by the challenges families face obtaining comprehensive, in-home care for their cognitively impaired loved ones. It is widely accepted that these existing gaps in care will continue to grow exponentially. This is because the oldest segment of the aging population , 85+, is projected to increase by four times the rate of the senior population at large. During this time, the needs of family caregivers are expected to only intensify as supportive programs remain overstretched and sorely fragmented. With relentless passion, I have devoted my career to developing solutions around these problem areas. Before I established a private practice to fill some of these gaps, I led many borough-wide advocacy efforts to bridge isolated, home-bound seniors to the health and mental health services accessible in their area. In this mission, I have forged many valuable and lasting partnerships with other experts in the field of Aging. These professional collaborations remain ongoing, and continue to help my clients access the very best from both, private sector and local community resources, geriatric specialists, and quality elder law advocacy.
Special populations I serve include: LGBT seniors and their caretakers, Holocaust survivors, mental health consumers, developmentally disabled adults, isolated older adults suffering from multiple co-morbidity, depression and chronic illnesses, as well as Alzheimer's and dementia sufferers and their caregivers. I am a board certified member of the Aging Life Care Association, the Geriatric Mental Health Alliance of NY, Gerontological Society of America, Case Management Society of America and the National Association of Social Workers, NYC Chapter. I have contributed to clinical trials in geriatric psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College, and have taught several courses in care management at Brookdale Center for Healthy Aging and longevity.