MentorTech Ventures, a venture capitalist based in Philadelphia, led the round and we had participation from several prominent Seattle area investors. We still are looking to raise a small amount before we close the round.

We are thrilled to be working with MentorTech as they bring a lot to the table. They’ve been involved in several recent successful startups including Diapers.com, MerchantCircle, ClickEquations, TicketLeap, PayQuik, and Yodle. Michael Aronson and Brett Topche from MentorTech understand online marketing and our business well. Michael will be joining our board.

Also joining our Board will be David Reibstein, a former marketing professor of mine while I was at Wharton. David is a great addition to the team with his keen marketing mind and wealth of marketing experience. David has been involved with numerous other Wharton startups including BizRate, of which he was a Board Member.

We are very appreciative of our investors for the trust they’ve put into us and to the many other people that have helped us along the way! Thank you!

Chris

As national health care reform is currently one of the most hotly debated issues among Americans, it’s important to understand how proposed changes would impact seniors, now and in the future. The Department of Health and Human Services has identified several funding highlights that address how the $76.8 billion budget will support its mission to protect the health of all Americans. In particular, the following highlights are relevant to seniors and health care:

1. Accelerates the adoption of health information technology and utilization of electronic health records.

As a result of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, $19 billion is currently set aside for health information technology, which will ensure that efficiencies are made in maintaining health records and protecting privacy. In practical terms, the health care providers of seniors have amassed extensive health records and the process of transferring such documents to specialists is currently cumbersome and time-consuming. Reviewing medical history through computerized health records will facilitate the provision of high-quality health care with timeliness and reduced medical errors.

2.Expands research comparing the effectiveness of medical treatments to give patients and physicians better information on what works best.

The treatment of chronic diseases that are commonly associated with advanced age, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, remain a significant priority for research in our country. With additional funding for medical research, progress can be made in effectively improving quality of life among those suffering age-related diseases and potentially preventing them in the future. At the same time, physicians treating seniors with multiple diagnoses will likely be more well-informed with regard to potentially negative medication interactions.

3. Strengthens the Medicare program by encouraging high quality and efficient care, and improving program integrity.

With regard to seniors and health care, they have expressed concern about the effect of health care reform on access to Medicare and, specifically, the Medicare Advantage program. This program allows seniors to buy Medicare coverage through private insurance plans, which offer lower premiums than traditional Medicare plans. Critics question the sustainability of a program that ultimately charges taxpayers 14% more per patient than regular Medicare. According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, eliminating the program would save $150 billion over 10 years. This savings is anticipated to result from 1) reducing Medicare payments to private insurers, 2) improving Medicare and Medicaid payment accuracy, 3) improving care after hospitalizations and reducing readmission rates, and 4) expanding the Hospital Quality Improvement Plan. If successful, an investment in savings now will ultimately extend the viability of Medicare until 2024.

Seniors and Health Care Reform: According to a Gallup poll conducted in late July of 2009, seniors represented the least optimistic demographic with regard to the benefits of health care reform. In fact, only 20% of Americans 65 years and older say health care reform would improve their own medical care. Ironically perhaps, three quarters of seniors currently receive health care through government-sponsored plans including Medicare and Medicaid. For seniors, health care reform in the future may suggest the possibility of changing what is currently a good thing.

Written by gerontologist Sara Shelton

President Obama’s Health Care plan is now in the hands of Congress, who produced House Bill 3200, America’s Affordable Healthy Choices Act of 2009. This bill could improve health care and lower costs for seniors in Assisted Living.

What is CLASS?

The bill would create a voluntary national long-term insurance plan for adults who become functionally disabled. Under this plan (called CLASS for Community Living Assistance and Supports), individuals would pay monthly premiums and be eligible for benefits within 5 years. CLASS prevents insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions or charging more based on health status.

CLASS targets the cost of living in an Assisted Living Facility, but it would not cover all costs. Two-thirds of Assisted Living seniors pay for care themselves with help from family or Medicaid. ALFA (Assisted Living Federation of America) calls CLASS a “strong first step towards encouraging personal responsibility in saving for long-term care.”

Current Regulations Have an Assisted Living Gap

ALFA explains that because of costs and coverage, seniors are often moved to a nursing home, which provides more care than they really need or want. Medicare covers only hospitalization and physical therapy, and most private insurers follow suit. But many seniors need help with custodial care–daily activities like bathing, dressing, grooming, toileting and getting around-and state laws often prevent Medicaid from paying for these services. With CLASS, more of these costs would be covered, so that many seniors could stay in Assisted Living. According to ALFA, the median monthly rate for assisted living is $2,350, about two-thirds the cost of skilled nursing facilities.

HR 3200 also ends limits on lifetime benefits and sets minimum standards for core benefits. These include outpatient hospital and clinic services and emergency room visits. HR3200 will not force seniors to give up or switch their current insurance.

New Rules for Skilled Nursing

The bill outlines new rules for skilled nursing homes, requiring them to disclose information about owners, operators, and board members, develop accountability procedures, quality measures, and ethics rules to prevent crime and abuse, and establish systems for formal complaint. Penalties would be imposed for non-compliance. Less clear is whether Assisted Living will be included in these provisions.

The bill proposes tax increases only on those with annual incomes over $350,000. Despite rumors, the government will not pay for reform by pushing seniors toward euthanasia. HR 3200 requires Medicare to reimburse physicians for visits involving end-of-life planning, such as living wills and health care proxies. Eligibility for such reimbursement is limited to once every five years, and New York already has a similar provision.

On September 1, 2009, AARP’s website clarified its support of health care reform that lowers drug costs, eliminates waste, protects seniors’ choice of insurers, and prevents denial of coverage based on pre-existing conditions, or higher costs due to age or gender.

Obama’s health care plan responds to the urgent need to curb health care and insurance costs. According to ALFA, over 50% of Medicaid funding goes to skilled nursing care for older Americans. By 2020, approximately 12.5 million Americans over 65 will need long term care. Find nonpartisan comparisons of current health care reform proposals at http://www.kff.org/healthreform/sidebyside.cfm.

Written by senior housing writer Lisa Logan, Ph.D.

There are a few easy guidelines to follow to optimize a website for an assisted living community.

1. Set up a clear call to action on every page on your website

Look at each page of your existing site. Is it clear on each page of the website what the next step should be?  You should be directing visitors to your site what you want them to do at each step along the way. Take a look at the Brookdale Living site.  On the home page, its very clear that they want you to Find a Community. On one of their community pages, the thing that jumps out first is the “Request Information” button. For your own site, you can test different calls to action. These might include: “Find a community” (if you have several locations), “Request Information”, “Request a brochure”, or even “Schedule a Tour”. You can experiment with different messaging but the bottom line is that on every page the site visitor should know what to do next.

2. Use a form as the main call to action for someone to contact you.

There are 2 reasons to use a form as the primary way to contact you. First, you have a permanent record of those to follow up with. This is going to be more reliable than the staff you’ve trained to answer the phones. Second, and more importantly, a form will allow you to more easily measure the percent of the people that visit your website that contact you, becoming a lead. The percent of site visitors that turn into leads is commonly called the conversion rate of the site. Knowing the conversion rate will allow you to measure the return on investment of different online marketing channels down the road.

3. Have your phone number and address on every page of the website.

Most site visitors will be looking for how to reach you. Some won’t want to fill out your “request information” form, so you should provide an alternative. Make it easy for them to find your number and address by putting them everywhere on the site. This shouldn’t be as big and noticeable as your “request information” form, but should be there nonetheless.

4. Keep it simple.

Less is more for websites. The easier it is to navigate the site and find information, the more likely visitor to your website will turn into leads for your assisted living community. Fancy graphics are much less important than a simple site that makes it easy for people to learn what your assisted living community has to offer and how to contact you.

5. Set up the systems to measure traffic and conversions on your assisted living website

With online marketing, just about everything is measurable, and to maximize the return on your marketing dollars, you need to make sure you can measure your success at every point along the way. There are two things set up: 1) A way to measure the traffic and website visitors from different traffic sources and 2) A way to measure whether the site is converting or not.

To measure traffic and visitors, I recommend using Google Analytics. Google analytics is free, is easy to set up and will give you just about everything you need: site visitors, which pages they visited, and how they found your site.

To measure whether or not your site is converting, there are a couple things to do. First, train whoever answers your phone to ask any new leads where they found out about your community. This will capture visitors who don’t fill out your “request information” form. Next, set up Google analytics to track how many people fill out your “request information” form. This may be more difficult to set up, but if you have trouble, there are many consultants out there that can help.  After this is set, you’ll find it very easy to measure over time how well your site is converting website visitors into leads.

Have questions? Ask them below!

Our goals:

Our goals are twofold: to become the best resource for people looking for senior care or senior housing and become a great source of prospects for senior homes looking for residents. We’ll do this by delivering a rich directory of senior care and senior housing providers, lots of informative content to help people through their search, tools to help people make more informed decisions, and a way to connect people to experts in the field.

What we launched:

While we still have a long way to go, the site is ready for primetime! Here is what we launched:

• Articles & content to help people through the issues of finding care & housing. Check out our assisted living center
• An easy-to-browse, easy-to-search directory of senior care & housing options across the country with rich information about many communities in Washington and Oregon. (we’ll be expanding to other states over time.)
• Local information about many communities in Washington & Oregon. For example, check out our Bellevue, WA Assisted Living page.
• A system to deliver qualified prospects to senior housing providers.

What’s to come: We still have a long way to go! Here is what we are working on for the next several months:

• Complete our directory of basic listings across the country. We know outside of Oregon and Washington, we still have many holes in our data. And we are still missing some categories altogether such as home care. We’ll be adding these soon.
• More rich content about senior care and local communities. We’ll be rolling out new markets every several months and will continue to produce informative articles on senior care.
• Ways to connect to a senior expert to get help.

How you can help: If you like our site, we’d love your feedback and help in getting the word out. Here is how you can help:

• Are you on Facebook? Become a fan of ours by going to our facebook page here and then clicking “Become a fan”
• Link to us, Tweet us, blog about us. These things can really matter to our success. If you have a blog, post a link to us or recommend us. If you are on Twitter, give us a Tweet.
• Feedback: We’d love any feedback you have on the site, the content, tone, etc. Please fill out our contact us form with your feedback.

Thanks for your help and we look forward to any feedback you have!

Best,

Chris and Jay

Many people contributed in one way or another to the development of the site. From advice, to input, to agreeing to be interviewed, Jay and I appreciate all the help and support. Thank you (you know who you are). 

What we launched:  The beta site has most of the functionality we’ll be building. The navigation and search features are mostly complete and the overall look and feel of the site is mature. The back-end infrastructure to run the site and manage content is mostly finished. It’s as if we’ve built the house and now just need to add carpet, paint and move the furniture in.

All Senior Homes beta launch

What is missing: 

• Placeholder Articles: Many of the articles are not posted yet. We are working hard to get these up as soon as we can. So please ignore the placeholders. 
• Empty Navigation Panes: Because we haven’t yet posted most of our articles, you will notice many empty navigational panes such as the “Assisted Living Center” or the “Senior Resources”. Eventually these will be filled with links to articles related to the appropriate category of care for the page you are on. 
• Listings: Our listings are far from complete. Over the next few months we expect to add many more listings (some categories of care, such as home care, are completely empty), re-categorize some listings, and add more data to the current listings.
• Featured Homes: We will have a page devoted to our featured listings where you can find a depth of information about the home, including the services offered, costs, pictures, floor plans, etc. These pages are not up yet, but will be at launch.

How you can help:  We’d love your feedback! The beta is meant to test out the navigation, features, and look and feel of the site. Any feedback you have is appreciated. If you’d like some specific areas to test here are some areas we’d like input on:

• “Find” feature: In the upper left corner of just about every page, you’ll see a “Find” box where you can select a category of care and location. Can you use this? Is doing a search intuitive? Do you get what you expect?
• Navigation: On the top and bottom of the page are links to get to other pages. What do you think of these? Is it easy to get around the site to find what you are looking for? 
• General look & feel: Is the tone of the site right? Are there rough edges anywhere? 

How to provide input:  If you have any input please Click here and fill out the form that comes up 

What’s next: We expect to run the beta for several weeks as we work out the kinks, add missing articles, clean up our listings, and add the featured pages. We hope to do a full launch of the site some time this Spring.  

Thanks again for all your help and we look forward to any input you have! 

Chris

Of course in online publishing, all that really matters is SEO & distribution. Given that Google’s search algorithms favor large highly authoritative sites,  how are these smaller sites making it?

focus

I believe its all about focus. Focus gives niche sites a certain advantage in their topical areas. Niche sites will have a wealth of content about a particular topic winning visitors across the full spectrum of keywords related to their topic.

Niche sites have 2 other advantages over a big portal: a lower cost structure and a targeted audience. Niche sites typically employ freelance writers at a rate much lower than sites like Yahoo or the New York Times, which allows them to run lean. Niche sites also often have a better idea of who is visiting their site which can lead to higher ad prices.

What is your favorite niche site?

Of course, it’s most often the children of the senior doing the searching and this is who we spoke to. Let’s call these folks “searchers”.  Most searchers talked about the guilt they felt in moving their parents into a senior home. This guilt happens even though moving a parent into a senior community is the right thing to do.

To overcome the guilt, searchers want to scour every possible option to find the very best place available.

Some of the resources that people are using to look for senior care are called out below:

• Referrals from their network.This was the most often mentioned source of information for searchers–everyone we spoke to turned to their personal network as the first source of info. A referral from a friend or relative was the most trusted and valuable information. We spoke to one searcher in Massachusetts who had recently moved to a new town to be near her aunt for whom she was looking for care. In order to find senior care she networked heavily in this new community to get the scoop on each community.
• The internet.The second most often mentioned source for info was the internet. Most people we spoke to turned to the internet for their search for senior care. However, most people didn’t find great resources. Most mentioned that they had a hard time wading through websites that were antiquated and didn’t inspire trust.
• State agencies & resources. A few people mentioned going to their state and local agencies for information. These agencies have a ton of great information and helpful people who are willing to answer questions.
• Yellow pages. A couple of people mentioned using their local yellow pages. We were surprised by this. We expected that especially among the “searcher” demographic, we’d see a greater reliance on things like the yellow pages and printed directories, etc, but this wasn’t true.

The research is just the beginning. Everyone said that the most important part of their search was actually visiting senior homes.  Interestingly, more than one person mentioned that the community needed to smell right.

We’ll share more later as we learn more about what people looking for senior care seek.

The quality vs. quantity question exists in most businesses.  Chevrolet looks to provide a level of quality that enables them to have lower prices versus their competitors, and that, in turn, means they focus on higher volume of sales for success.  Lexus sells a lower volume of cars, but they get higher margins for the quality they provide.  This is replicated in fine restaurants vs. McDonalds, Wal-Mart vs. Nordstorm’s, etc.  The same is true with Internet-driven leads, though there is one important difference.

The difference with the other products mentioned is expectations.  With McDonald’s burgers, Chevy Malibus and clothes at Wal-Mart, most consumers have an expectation of what they will get, and that expectation is typically met.  Unfortunately, too often expectations are not appropriately set for leads.  There are some vendors who push to provide a high volume model of leads to an extreme, but they often do not warn about the lower quality of their leads.  Often, as a result, this affects the perception of leads, even when many reputable suppliers exist.

When choosing a lead vendor for assisted living, independent living or other facilities, you should require them to be explicit in setting your expectations (on conversion rate, volume, information included, type of traffic source, etc.). If this is done before an agreement in made, you can decide if you are receiving an appropriate quality for your marketing dollars.

Some buyers are willing to take lower quality leads, because they want greater volume.  All buyers, however, should have a defined bar that they apply to their suppliers.  Reputable suppliers will be able to stand behind their quality.

We know we will. 

Here’s a link to a lead gen conference presentation with additional useful information on this topic  from an lead generation industry analyst

Jay

We hope to become the best resource on the web for learning about local Assisted Living Facilities, Nursing Homes, Home Care and Retirement Communities.

We started AllSeniorHomes.com because we think we can create a truly unique and valuable resource for people looking for senior homes and home care. Over that last 3 months, we have spoken to many people that have recently been through the process of finding a home for a parent, loved one, or for themselves. In these conversations, we learned about the many challenges people face and we believe our site will eliminate at least a few of these struggles and serve as a great starting point.

If you are responsible for marketing assisted living, home care or a nursing home, there is a great opportunity to use the internet to build your business! The internet is the most cost effective way to do marketing and we believe after talking to many of you that we can help. One of the primary purposes for our blog will be to help educate you on how to improve your internet marketing efforts.

As you can see, we are still working on our site, but will be fully operational very shortly. Stay tuned for our full launch!