What Does a Geriatric Care Manager Do and When Should You Hire One?
When a parent’s care needs become complex, families often find themselves overwhelmed by the number of moving pieces: medical decisions, housing options, insurance questions, family disagreements, and a long list of providers and systems they have never dealt with before. A geriatric care manager can be the most useful professional in the room during this period.
Most families have never heard of one.
What a Geriatric Care Manager Is
A geriatric care manager (sometimes called an aging life care professional) is a specialist — typically a social worker, nurse, or other health professional with additional training in gerontology — who helps older adults and their families navigate the healthcare and long-term care system.
They are independent. Unlike staff at a specific facility or a hospital discharge planner, a geriatric care manager typically works for the family, not for any particular provider or system. Their job is to understand your parent’s situation in full and help you make the best decisions for them, regardless of what those decisions are.
What They Do
The scope of a geriatric care manager’s work varies by family and situation, but commonly includes:
Assessment: A thorough evaluation of your parent’s physical health, cognitive function, emotional wellbeing, home environment, financial situation, and social connections. This creates a complete picture that most families have never assembled in one place.
Care planning: Based on the assessment, a geriatric care manager can develop a care plan — a concrete set of recommendations for what level of care is appropriate, what services are needed, and how those services should be arranged.
Options navigation: If assisted living or memory care is being considered, a geriatric care manager typically knows the communities in the area and can make specific recommendations based on your parent’s needs and your family’s priorities. This is more targeted than a general internet search.
Coordination: A geriatric care manager can coordinate among multiple providers — the primary care physician, specialists, home care agencies, the assisted living community, and others — to make sure everyone has the same information and is working toward the same goals.
Crisis support: If a parent has an unexpected hospitalization, fall, or health event, a geriatric care manager can step in immediately, communicate with hospital staff, arrange discharge planning, and guide the family through rapid decisions under pressure.
Family mediation: When family members disagree about care decisions, a geriatric care manager provides an informed, independent perspective that can cut through the disagreement. Having a professional say “here is what the clinical picture suggests” is often more persuasive than one sibling saying it to another.
Ongoing monitoring: For families who live at a distance from an aging parent, a geriatric care manager can provide regular check-ins, attend medical appointments, and serve as a local point of contact who understands the situation.
When It Makes Sense to Hire One
Geriatric care managers are not necessary for every family. Some situations where hiring one is particularly valuable:
- Your parent’s care needs are complex (multiple medical conditions, dementia, significant functional decline)
- Your family lives far from your parent and cannot monitor the situation regularly
- Your family disagrees about the right course of action
- Your parent’s situation changes rapidly and you are making important decisions under time pressure
- You have looked at assisted living options and feel overwhelmed or uncertain
- Your parent has been hospitalized and you need help managing the discharge and transition
- You want an independent professional view before making a major care decision
How to Find One
The Aging Life Care Association (ALCA) maintains a national directory of credentialed aging life care professionals at aginglifecare.org. Searching by zip code will surface professionals in your area.
You can also ask your parent’s primary care physician for a referral, or contact your county’s Area Agency on Aging, which may know of local resources.
Geriatric care managers typically charge hourly rates, with assessments and care plans billed separately from ongoing management. Rates vary by region and provider. Most geriatric care management services are not covered by Medicare or standard health insurance; long-term care insurance sometimes covers it.
How an Assisted Living Community Relates to a Geriatric Care Manager
A geriatric care manager will often have strong opinions about which assisted living communities they trust for their clients. If a family is already working with a geriatric care manager and is exploring communities, it is worth asking them directly: which communities in this area do you recommend, and why?
For families in the greater Milwaukee area exploring options like assisted living in Milwaukee or Oak Creek, a geriatric care manager can help assess which community type and which specific communities match a parent’s particular clinical needs, personal preferences, and family circumstances. Their local knowledge is often the fastest path to a well-matched placement.