Today we’d like to introduce you to Paul Blom.
Hi Paul, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
In 2001, my husband, Bob, and I were on the forefront of a new industry when we opened the third Right at Home in-home care franchise in the country, quickly becoming known for setting industry standards in caregiver retention and customer satisfaction in the Twin Cities.
Our passion for senior care, however, began long before Right at Home. As a teenager, I formed close friendships with elderly neighbors, mowing lawns and helping with chores around their homes. One woman relied so heavily on my help that as I prepared to leave for college, her family found they needed to move her into a nursing home. This experience, combined with Bob’s teen experience working in a nursing home, spurred us into thinking about how we could help other seniors remain safely at home. Prior to opening our Right at Home franchise, I worked for several years in the IT industry as well as in professional staffing. Bob, meanwhile, managed stores for a regional convenience chain for 17 years. When opening our Right at Home office, we combined our backgrounds, focusing our efforts on finding and training the best caregivers in the industry, knowing that quality caregivers who were appreciated and supported would provide the best possible senior care.
That belief has guided Right at Home Twin Cities and South Suburbs for the past 20 years. For twelve consecutive years, Right at Home has ranked in the top ten positions for mid-sized and small-sized businesses in the Top Workplaces rankings of the Star Tribune. We were granted individual awards for Leadership Confidence in 2010 and 2011, Meaningful Work in 2013, Top Management in 2016, and Efficiency & Professionalism in 2018 and 2020. Results were based on employee feedback in anonymous surveys. In 2010, Right at Home was also awarded the Better Business Bureau Integrity Award, and in 2015, we were presented with a Psychologically Healthy Workplace Award by the Minnesota Psychological Association. Additionally, three caregivers from our office have been selected as Caregiver of the Year award winners for the national Right at Home RightCare Award.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Being on the forefront of the private-duty/non-medical home care industry was a challenge in that we were constantly educating other healthcare professionals about our services. Up to the late 1990s, the only concept of home care was that which was provided through Medicare after a qualifying hospitalization. The mindset when we started our business was that elderly people didn’t have the financial resources to hire services privately. Overcoming that obstacle was a big challenge. Eventually, we started accepting payment for services through Medical Assistance/Medicaid for low-income seniors. That jump-started our business at the time. Unfortunately, the reimbursement rates stagnated and even got reduced once or twice. In 2015 it became clear that we could no longer sustain a business model with the majority being reimbursed by Medicaid. We then began reducing the number of new Medicaid clients we would accept and, eventually, discontinued taking new Medicaid clients at all. It was a hard decision, but we knew it was the right one. Today we have a handful of clients on those programs, and we allow existing private-pay clients to roll over to the Medicaid program when they run out of funds. Tough decisions! COVID-19…talk about a challenge! Somehow we made it through 20 months with only a handful of “close calls,” but no documented cases of employees/caregivers infecting clients with COVID (knock on wood).
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’m incredibly proud of the culture that we have built in our organization, which has resulted in some of the lowest turnover rates in the industry. Our office staff of 7 has a collective tenure of over 100 years!
I’m also tremendously proud of my involvement in a variety of community organizations/efforts:
LGBT Aging: I was part of a group of professionals who coalesced around some research that showed older LGBT folks have higher health needs and are much less likely to seek out the services they need (bad combination). Eventually, we surveyed providers of services for seniors to see if they realized this situation and found they didn’t, but they were willing to learn. As a result, an educational curriculum was developed called Training to Serve. From 2010-today, this curriculum has been used to train nearly 20,000 people who work with seniors. I’m no longer on the board of directors, but still conduct lots of popular (Zoom) training sessions with the curriculum. When situations involving the LGBT(Q+) community arise in the home care industry, I am a go-to resource and am called upon frequently by colleagues.
Parkinson’s Disease (PD): I became involved in the MN Chapter of the National Parkinson Foundation (NPF, the 2nd largest PD org) around 2002 when a colleague asked me to join the board. Eventually, I became Chair of the State Board and then Chair of the National Chapter Advisory Council, also serving on the National Board of Directors. From 2015 until the beginning of 2017, I served as the Interim CEO of NPF. During my tenure, we facilitated the merger of NPF with the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation (the 3rd largest PD org), successfully retaining all staff in both organizations. We hired the new CEO and the combined organization, newly named Parkinson’s Foundation, is now thriving and substantially larger than the sum of the two legacy organizations. I am no longer on the board, but get called on by colleagues for advice in situations relating to clients living with Parkinson’s disease.
Avenues for Youth: My husband and I have been connected to Avenues for over 20 years. We first became acquainted when we became hosts for a program called Project Offstreets LGBT Host Home Program which matched LGBT youth experiencing homelessness with homes for stable housing. Our youth was staying at the Avenues North Minneapolis Shelter. I currently serve as the President of the Board of Directors and could not be more proud of the organization and how the leadership weathered the COVID pandemic.
What were you like growing up?
Born in 1969, I grew up in Green Bay, WI. The grandparents that I was closest to lived on a small dairy farm about 20 miles west of Green Bay. I spent a fair amount of time with them, especially summers. Growing up in a fairly small town in a relatively conservative area, there weren’t any real role models for a gay kid, so I pretty much didn’t even know it was a thing. Kids used words like queer and fag in a negative way, so I certainly learned early on that gay was a bad thing. So, I worked hard to fit in without even really thinking too much about it. I was a popular kid for the most part. I had girlfriends, was on the student council, and the honor roll. I volunteered in the school office during my study hall time answering the phone and filing, etc.… I keep in touch with one of the secretaries on Facebook. I was a people-pleaser. It was very important to me to belong and be accepted. I was very involved with our church (Lutheran) youth program. I even helped my mom teach Sunday School and gave the sermon on Youth Sunday! I wasn’t naturally the flamboyant stereotype of a gay man. I “passed” as heterosexual quite easily. I always felt badly for the guys that more naturally fit the stereotype because they were picked on and set apart. I sang in Show Choir, played football for a couple of years, but quit to spend more time working; mowing lawns for elderly neighbors and working at the local grocery store as a stock-boy and in the bakery.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.rah-tc.net
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rightathometwincities
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/RightAtHomeTC
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/CaregivingCompanion
