The CareFit Method
Finding a community is easy. Finding the right CareFit is hard. Any advisor can hand you a list of openings. CareFit is how an occupational therapist decides whether a community can actually care for your loved one, and it is the same three steps whether you have to decide in months or days.
Step 1
Tour Together
You never walk into a community alone.
What we need from you
A free discovery call, and your availability for tours. Where possible, a visit with your loved one in person or on video, and the medical release if they are in a hospital or rehab so we can speak with the care team.
What Summer does
Looks at how the day actually goes: mobility, transfers, bathing and dressing, medication routine, cognition and fall risk. Then narrows the 40 plus Charlotte area communities we track to a short list using their rate sheets, their care level ceilings, their staffing patterns and what she has seen inside them, and tours with you asking the questions you wish you had asked: overnight staffing, the criteria for a care change, what happened the last time a resident's needs changed.
What you walk away with
A short list of two to four communities, each with the all in monthly range and the reason it made the list, and a read on each one from someone who has worked inside a community.
Timing: The call and the short list within days. Tours within a week of the short list, or the same day in a discharge situation.
Step 2
You Decide
Summer does not make the decision. She makes yours better informed.
What we need from you
The decision makers in the family on the same page, and what matters most to your loved one.
What Summer does
Helps you weigh what you saw on the tours: what the rate sheet covers and what it does not, what the residency agreement allows, what a care level ceiling means for the years ahead, and where each community fits your loved one's day. She brings the experience of having been present while other families made this same choice, so the question is never just do you like it, but will it hold up.
What you walk away with
A decision you can explain to your siblings, with the reasons written down, and the questions still worth asking before you sign.
Timing: Usually the same week as the tours. Some families need longer, and that is fine.
Step 3
Move-in
She stays through the move and the first weeks after.
What we need from you
The move date, and the people who are helping on the day.
What Summer does
Consults on the care assessment the community performs before move in, helps you read the residency agreement, and is there on move in day. She checks in regularly through the first weeks after.
What you walk away with
A move in plan, and someone to call when week two does not feel like the tour.
Timing: Move in on the family's and the community's timeline, with Summer checking in regularly after.
CareFit is not a medical evaluation and it does not replace your doctor or the discharge team. It's professional information that informs your decision, and that decision always remains yours.
Ready to start with Tour Together?
Thirty minutes with Summer and you will know what level of care makes sense to explore and what the next step looks like. No obligation, no pressure.