Looking Ahead Inc. relocates its headquarters to Fountainville

Looking Ahead Inc. has moved into its new Advance Care Planning office in Suite 504 of the Executive Center at 5033 Swamp Road in Fountainville.

Advance care planning is the process of thinking about your values and beliefs, weighing your options and deciding what health care you want—and don’t want—in the future. You document your decisions in an advance healthcare directive, a legal document that also names your choice of a healthcare agent who will speak on your behalf if you become unable to make your own care decisions or speak for yourself.

Since its launch in 2014, the Central Bucks-based nonprofit has been providing a full range of advance care planning services and support to residents directly and through healthcare providers in Southeastern Pennsylvania. This includes several programs Looking Ahead has developed to educate the public, deliver meaningful planning assistance to individuals in the community, work with healthcare providers and insurance companies to serve their patients, and ensure that documents are completed and filed appropriately.

“We are up and running in our new office,” says Betsy Payn, MSN, executive director and co-founder with Dr. Veronica E. Coyne of the nonprofit. “We’re able to meet with people for private one-on-one planning conversations, schedule planning sessions with patients at their physicians’ offices, and bring in clients to finalize and notarize their completed directives.”

Looking Ahead developed its My Wishes Workshop® small-group advance care planning program in 2016 and since then has presented to hundreds of people in residential communities, church groups, clubs and social gatherings. Payn will offer the workshops at the new office starting Thursday, January 23 at 10:00am.

Payn currently has contracts with 11 primary care practices in the Central Bucks area, adding new practices as word spreads of Looking Ahead’s proven success. She also trains healthcare professionals further afield to conduct advance care planning in their communities using the model she has developed.

“Patients are invariably asked ‘do you have a living will or advance directive?’ when they visit their primary physician, have an outpatient procedure at a hospital or check into an inpatient facility,” she says. “Now, more people in our community can say, ‘Yes, I do, and it’s on file.’ They know their wishes will be followed should they be unable to speak for themselves at any time in the future.”

Payn points out that many insurances, including Medicare, recognize the value of advance care planning and will cover most, if not all, of the costs of the services.

Looking Ahead’s program is unique in the field of advance care planning for two distinctive features:

• Completion & filing. Looking Ahead takes the extra steps of reviewing each advance directive to answer any remaining questions, then witnesses signatures and notarizes the document before filing it promptly with the primary care practice and treating hospital. Each individual leaves with the original directive to keep on hand where it can be accessed easily, copies to give healthcare agents, suggestions for sharing the document and contents with loved ones and instructions to review the directive every year or so. These extra steps by Looking Ahead mean that the directive is complete and where it needs to be should the need arise—not unfinished or sitting in the back of a drawer.
• Medical backgrounds. Looking Ahead trains & certifies only medical professionals—physicians, social workers and nurses, for example—as ACP facilitators to assist its clients and guide them through the conversational process. Their medical backgrounds give them the knowledge to answer questions and explain terms, adding a richness and clarity to the planning experience that non-medical professionals cannot bring to the process.

Looking Ahead’s board of directors includes co-founder Veronica E. Coyne, MD; James P. Blore Jr., MD, and Sunny White, MBA. Dr. Coyne and Dr. Blore also serve as medical directors to the organization.

“Looking Ahead accomplishes this important planning process in a comfortable manner with trained professionals,” says Dr. Coyne. “Advance care planning done this way, in partnership with physicians, opens up vital pathways of communication between families and medical providers.”

“As a retired family physician with a significant emphasis on geriatric care, I am very aware of the need for further education and understanding of the advance care planning process by both the public and medical professionals,” says Dr. Blore. “Looking Ahead has proven to be an important organization, effectively filling this need.”

ABOUT LOOKING AHEAD
Looking Ahead is a Bucks County nonprofit founded in 2014 with a single objective: to serve as an advance care planning resource for the community. We raise awareness for ACP through education programs and deliver guidance for completing and filing advance directives to all members of the community regardless of age, health or income status. To learn more, or to schedule an education presentation, one-on-one ACP facilitation or small-group My Wishes Workshop®: info@LookingAheadACP.org, 267.544.9580, LookingAheadACP.org.