Sarah Starcher-Lane
- 139-A. Training the Next Generation of Caregivers in Aging Services
Sunday, November 02, 2025
1:00 – 2:00 p.m.
139-A. Training the Next Generation of Caregivers in Aging Services
Training the Next Generation of Caregivers in Aging Services
Byron Health Center in Fort Wayne, IN, addresses the needs of individuals with complex medical conditions through a range of Medicaid-funded care and services. This session will highlight how the community has engaged local young people in its volunteer program and enrolled high school students in a work-based learning initiative to help them explore careers in aging services. Two Byron executives will describe how these young volunteers work alongside residents aged 20 to 98 who live with dementia, traumatic brain injuries, severe and chronic mental illnesses, and intellectual and developmental disabilities. They will explain how they train young people, the lessons learned, and their plans for the future.
Jessica Stewart
- 69-L. Are You Wasting Money on Marketing? Assessing Your Blind Spots
Wednesday, November 05, 2025
11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
69-L. Are You Wasting Money on Marketing? Assessing Your Blind Spots
Are You Wasting Money on Marketing? Assessing Your Blind Spots
“Half my marketing budget is being wasted: But which half?” If you’ve ever asked yourself that question, this session is for you. Presenters will address the critical blind spots many organizations experience when evaluating their marketing budgets. They’ll provide tips to help you confidently assess and improve marketing performance at every level while unlocking growth opportunities, boosting sales, eliminating wasteful spending on underperforming tactics, and crafting marketing messages that resonate in competitive markets. You’ll learn how to align your marketing plan with your broader strategic goals and ensure accountability within your sales and marketing teams. Take home tools to achieve better returns on your marketing investment by amplifying what works well and adjusting what doesn’t.
Bob Stillman
- 135-I. Design and Construction: A Better Way to Keep Budgets on Track
Tuesday, November 04, 2025
4:30 – 5:30 p.m.
135-I. Design and Construction: A Better Way to Keep Budgets on Track
Design and Construction: A Better Way to Keep Budgets on Track
High interest rates and construction costs have many organizations struggling to complete senior living projects within budget. Unfortunately, budget overruns often occur late in the construction process, forcing project teams to cut building costs after making significant investments in the design process. This session will present a better approach. Senior living construction experts will demonstrate how to use pre-design programming to set your projects up for success. You’ll learn how to transform financial projections, market demand data, and consumer preferences into detailed project requirements, identify essential construction process components and how each contributes to the total cost, and establish a realistic project scope. This practical guidance will help ensure your project objectives align with your budget.
Robyn Stone
- 24-A. Measures that Matter: Helping Boards Focus on Quality
- 142-H. A Collaborative Strategy for Developing the CNA Workforce
Sunday, October 25, 2026
1:00 – 2:00 p.m.
24-A. Measures that Matter: Helping Boards Focus on Quality
Measures that Matter: Helping Boards Focus on Quality
Given the complexity of life plan communities and the scope of management responsibilities, boards of directors often focus primarily on their financial and fiduciary duties. This session offers a different approach. Presenters will unpack the board’s responsibility to dig deeper into compliance measures to understand what they reveal about a life plan community’s quality of care and quality of life. These insights will help the board participate in developing person-centered solutions that advance the organization’s mission. You’ll learn how a governance approach grounded in accountability, learning, and compassion fosters transformative collaboration among organizational leaders and how that collaboration can enhance the quality of life for older adults.
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
3:00 – 4:00 p.m.
142-H. A Collaborative Strategy for Developing the CNA Workforce
A Collaborative Strategy for Developing the CNA Workforce
Educators, providers, policymakers, and workforce leaders nationwide are rethinking how aging services providers recruit, train, support, and retain frontline caregivers. This session will highlight this collaborative effort. Presenters will describe a recent national meeting that examined the potential for multi-state collaboration to standardize certified nursing assistant (CNA) career pathways through state-based Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Programs. They’ll share lessons learned from convening stakeholders across education, workforce development, aging services, finance, policy, and care delivery systems to discuss workforce solutions. You’ll discover how stakeholder collaboration can drive system-wide changes in policy, practice, and workforce development.
Wendy Strain
- 84-G. Operationalize ADR Management to Protect Your Resources
- 108-L. Identify and Address Risks Before the Survey Team Arrives
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
8:30 – 9:30 a.m.
84-G. Operationalize ADR Management to Protect Your Resources
Operationalize ADR Management to Protect Your Resources
Nursing homes and post-acute care providers face heightened scrutiny when Medicare and other payers issue Additional Documentation Requests (ADR) or conduct targeted medical reviews and post-payment audits. Delays in responding to these requests can lead to improper payment findings against the provider. This session will help leaders shift from reactive, one-claim-at-a-time ADR responses to a structured, collaborative approach. Presenters will outline common review triggers, explain how documentation gaps and fragmented communication pose financial and compliance risks, and review each step of an ADR, from request through appeal. Learn how to operationalize ADR and denial management to support quality and financial stability.
Wednesday, October 28, 2026
11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
108-L. Identify and Address Risks Before the Survey Team Arrives
Identify and Address Risks Before the Survey Team Arrives
The survey environment for long-term care providers is growing more complex as federal and state agencies refine guidance, raise expectations, and adjust priorities. This complexity often turns annual recertification and complaint surveys into disruptive, high-stress events that expose gaps in practice, documentation, and oversight. Using QAPI as a framework, this session will equip organizational leaders with the tools to stay survey-ready every day. Presenters will review emerging national and state survey trends and highlight common citations and surveyor priorities. They’ll show you how to focus on high-risk processes, develop performance improvement projects, and monitor corrective actions. You’ll get the support you need to build day-to-day practices that identify and address risks before the survey team arrives.
Kelly Stranburg
- 116-H. Measuring the Impact of Resident Engagement
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
3:00 – 4:00 p.m.
116-H. Measuring the Impact of Resident Engagement
Measuring the Impact of Resident Engagement
Older adults increasingly seek purpose, autonomy, and connection in their daily lives. Engagement activities in senior living communities must reflect these desires by moving beyond entertainment to include experiences that support physical, emotional, social, intellectual, and spiritual well-being. This session will explore shifting engagement preferences and introduce you to tracking and assessment methods for measuring the impact of engagement activities, demonstrating their value to stakeholders, and empowering staff to deliver more intentional, resident-centered experiences. You’ll leave with actionable strategies to reframe your engagement efforts, strengthen the link between programming and resident well-being, and communicate success in ways that resonate with stakeholders.
Brad Straub
- 32-I. Build a Team That Outperforms Expectations
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
4:30 – 5:30 p.m.
32-I. Build a Team That Outperforms Expectations
Build a Team That Outperforms Expectations
Extraordinary outcomes depend on extraordinary teams, whether you’re leading an expansion, repositioning an existing campus, stabilizing occupancy, or launching a major operational initiative. This session tells the story of a life plan community that built a cross-functional team to deliver a successful expansion that many believed would not resonate with its intended audience. Presenters will describe how they improved performance across operations, culture, sales, brand, design, and development through strategic decisions, bold pivots, and mindset shifts that propelled a small nonprofit community to outsized success. You’ll walk away with a replicable framework for building team chemistry and enhancing execution, along with practical tips for shifting culture and inspiring optimism.
Mark Sunderman
- 126-B. Innovative Designs for Active Adult and Independent Living Communities
Sunday, November 02, 2025
2:45 – 3:45 p.m.
126-B. Innovative Designs for Active Adult and Independent Living Communities
Innovative Designs for Active Adult and Independent Living Communities
The next generation of senior living residents will seek aesthetically pleasing homes and apartments that support their independence, adapt to their evolving needs, and preserve their dignity. This session will explore innovative designs for active-adult and independent living that will help you meet the preferences of current and future consumers. Presenters will draw on insights from design, marketing, sales, and therapy experts to help you envision life plan community homes and apartments that quickly adapt to residents’ needs, balance safety and autonomy, and maintain a non-institutional feel. They’ll also examine the latest in-home technology, including voice-activated controls, automated lighting, and fall detection sensors. Discover how to design your community’s dwellings to support aging and choice while discreetly addressing residents’ changing needs.
Tom Symondson
Lee Syria
- 39-K. Navigating Transition: The Providence Place Acquisition Story
Wednesday, November 05, 2025
10:00 – 11:00 a.m.
39-K. Navigating Transition: The Providence Place Acquisition Story
Navigating Transition: The Providence Place Acquisition Story
Providence Place, a retirement community in High Point, NC, faced a pivotal moment in January 2024 as it navigated the retirements of its chief executive officer and chief operating officer while grappling with financial challenges and initiating an acquisition process. This session will detail the 10-month journey leading to the community’s acquisition by EveryAge, a multi-site provider based in Newton, NC. Presenters will highlight the strategies, challenges, and lessons learned during the acquisition process and explore how collaboration, mission-driven leadership, and stakeholder commitment ensured a smooth transition for both organizations. They will offer advice on maintaining organizational stability during leadership transitions and financial challenges, fostering teamwork during an acquisition, and successfully linking two middle market organizations with complementary visions.
Aisling Taft
- 109-A. Supporting Human Connection through Intimacy Policies
Sunday, October 25, 2026
1:00 – 2:00 p.m.
109-A. Supporting Human Connection through Intimacy Policies
Supporting Human Connection through Intimacy Policies
Many organizations recognize the importance of honoring residents’ rights, yet few have clear guidelines for supporting intimate expression, especially when decision-making capacity is impaired. This session will introduce you to a collaborative, multidisciplinary approach to developing an intimacy and sexuality policy. Presenters will highlight how one nursing home worked with a medical ethicist, staff, residents, and families to develop a framework that safeguards vulnerable adults while affirming their fundamental human need for connection, companionship, and intimate expression. You’ll take away information to help you support residents’ intimacy responsibly and compassionately, honor individual rights, and enhance overall quality of life, all while complying with regulations.
Junying Tang
- 75-D. International Perspectives: Field-Driven Standards Lead to Person-Centered Innovation
Monday, November 03, 2025
8:30 – 9:30 a.m.
75-D. International Perspectives: Field-Driven Standards Lead to Person-Centered Innovation
International Perspectives: Field-Driven Standards Lead to Person-Centered Innovation
Providers of aging services in China have used CARF International’s field-driven, person-centered accreditation standards to improve the care experience of their residents and the business outcomes of their organizations. This session will showcase China’s innovative business and care delivery in independent living, assisted living, rehabilitation programs, and other care models unique to China. Presenters will introduce you to China’s aging services system, explain how it compares to aging services worldwide, and suggest ways it could be replicated in other countries. Panelists will also share how Chinese providers are expanding person-centered practices across entire systems of care.