| Exploring the Role of Care Manager

| Jill Poser CGCM, CMC, CDCP is founder and principal of Life Care Concierge of South Florida, a nurse-led care advocacy and management practice. She recently wrote about Filial Maturity for Aging in America News. Here, she explains the care management profession and what it takes to excel in the field.

How did you first discover this role?

During my career, I owned a kitchen and bath showroom in south Florida, where we specialized in high-end residential renovation and construction. Around that time, the National Association of Home Builders introduced a certification called Certified Aging-in-Place Specialist (CAPS), focused on serving older adults and individuals with special needs who wished to remain in their homes safely. I chose to pursue the certification and immediately fell in love with the work. With my general contractor’s license, the CAPS designation opened the door to collaborating with professionals dedicated to serving the older adult and special needs communities. It was through that work that I was first introduced to care management. I was deeply moved by how care managers lean in during some of the most vulnerable moments in people’s lives, guiding families through complex decisions with compassion and clarity. That exposure changed the trajectory of my career. What began as a focus on design and construction evolved into a calling centered on supporting individuals and families as they navigate aging with dignity, safety, and thoughtful guidance.

How has the profession changed over the course of your career? 

What began as a professional pivot has become a life’s work. Over time, my role has expanded from shaping physical environments to supporting the whole person and the entire family system. I now see my work as helping families move through complexity with clarity, compassion, and steadiness during some of life’s most meaningful and vulnerable chapters. Over the course of my career, the role of care management has become increasingly specialized and nuanced. There is now a greater focus on dementia care, reflecting both the prevalence of cognitive decline in today’s aging population and the need for targeted interventions. Care managers are also specializing in home safety and fall prevention, ensuring that clients can remain independent and safe in their own homes. Advances in therapeutic recreation services for those who choose to age in place have become an important part of care planning, helping to reduce social isolation and support emotional well-being. Care managers blend clinical expertise, home safety knowledge, therapeutic engagement strategies, and ongoing collaboration with families and healthcare professionals to ensure the best outcomes for older adults.

What are the systemic challenges in our nation’s health care and elder care systems that make this profession necessary? 

Our nation’s health care and elder care systems are highly fragmented. Medical providers, rehabilitation facilities, home care agencies, insurance companies, and community resources often operate in silos. Families are left to bridge those gaps, frequently during moments of crisis, without the training, knowledge, or emotional bandwidth to do so effectively.

We also have a system that is largely reactive rather than proactive. It is designed to treat acute medical events, not to support the long-term, evolving needs of aging adults. As longevity increases and chronic conditions become more common, families are navigating complex care decisions over extended periods, often without a central guide.

In addition, reimbursement structures rarely account for the time required to coordinate care, educate families, or address the psychosocial and environmental factors that directly impact well-being.  At the same time, families today are more geographically dispersed, adult children are balancing careers and caregiving, and many lack prior experience managing aging-related challenges. The result is stress, confusion, and sometimes-avoidable crises. Care management exists to bring clarity to that complexity. 

What skills or qualities make a good care manager?

A care manager serves as a knowledgeable, steady presence; someone who can assess needs holistically, coordinate services, anticipate risks, and guide families through difficult decisions with compassion and perspective. When nurse care managers are involved, they add critical clinical insight, ensuring that medical aspects of care are handled with precision and confidence. Together, general and nurse care managers act as the connective tissue in a fragmented system, helping individuals age with dignity, safety, and comprehensive support.

This seems like an “AI-proof” job, but how do you see technology affecting this function in the future?

Care management is deeply relational and requires human judgment, empathy, and emotional intelligence; qualities that technology cannot replicate. In that sense, it is indeed a highly “AI-proof” profession. The work involves understanding family dynamics, navigating delicate conversations, and responding to real-time crises; tasks that require intuition, ethical reasoning, and trust-building.

That said, technology can be a powerful tool to enhance care management. For example, digital platforms can help track medications, coordinate appointments, monitor health metrics, and share information securely among providers and families. AI and data analytics can flag potential risks, suggest interventions, or identify trends that a human might not immediately see, giving care managers more context and insight.

Ultimately, technology is most effective when it supports, not replaces, the human connection. 

In what ways would care manager make a good “encore profession?” Can you describe someone who’s made that career shift?

Care management can be an excellent encore profession because it allows individuals to draw on a lifetime of personal, professional, and educational experience while making a meaningful impact on others. The key professionals most suited to this work are those with advanced education, nursing backgrounds, social work experience, specialized certifications, and ongoing training, equipping them to support older adults and individuals with special needs; populations that are often among the most vulnerable. Skills developed over decades in prior careers; organization, problem-solving, leadership, empathy, communication, and relationship-building translate directly to care management, allowing individuals to navigate complex situations with confidence and clarity.

While care management can be deeply rewarding, it is not for everyone. It takes a special type of individual; someone capable of maintaining ongoing, trusting relationships with clients, keeping interactions fresh and engaging, and consistently making clients feel safe, supported, and understood physically, emotionally, and psychologically. Care managers must also work closely with families, remain calm under pressure, and provide guidance to clients at some of the most vulnerable moments in their lives.