My Experience as a Marketing and Sales Intern at an Assisted Living Community
Hello everyone! My name is Gracie Wise, and I am a senior majoring in Advertising with a concentration in Account Management. For the fall 2019 semester, I am interning at an retirement community in Ambler, PA called Artman Lutheran Home. Artman is a leader in providing personal care, skilled nursing and rehabilitation services in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.
My internship is with the Sales and Marketing Department. My day to day consists of shadowing my supervisor MaryAnn, the Director of sales and Marketing, as well as helping the admissions department with admissions paperwork, credentialing and offering administrative assistance to department leaders. With my supervisor, I meet with prospective residents and their family members; we conduct tours of the community, and answer questions regarding insurance, our services, financial eligibility and answer any other questions they may have. We also utilize a database to track leads. My supervisor and I also make sure that the community looks presentable for tours, as well as any work that needs to be done to our suites to prepare for new move-ins.
During my time at Artman, I have learned all about the different types of care that is available to seniors including personal care, memory care, skilled nursing, rehabilitation, hospice, and respite care. Additionally, I have learned about HIPAA, which is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. HIPAA is a federal law that provides privacy standards to protect patients’ medical records and other health information provided to health plans, doctors, hospitals and other health care providers. I also learned the ins and outs about medical insurance for seniors.
After interning at Artman I have started to think about getting my Nursing Home Administrator license (NHA). I hope to possibly get a job at Artman once I graduate college and I think that becoming a licensed nursing home administrator will help me grow within the company.
My experience interning at Artman has taught me how to work in a team setting. Everyone at Artman, from the maintenance staff to the administrative staff work closely together to ensure that our residents are getting the quality care that they deserve.
The positive aspect of the work I did was getting to work closely with older adults. The residents that I met at Artman are a joy to serve. I like helping people and I think interning here at Artman is very rewarding because I get to make a difference in the lives of older adults.
My original expectations for the internship was that everyone was going to be indifferent to me and that I was going to have to gain everyone’s respect because I was an intern. This was not the case. I met a lot of great people, both employees and residents. My supervisor MaryAnn was very inspirational. She is a great saleswoman and I was very fortunate to work with her. I learned how to multi-task, to be more adaptable, compassionate, and a better communicator. I think one thing that I would have done differently was to ask more questions to people outside of the department I was working in. Overall, the experience exceeded my expectations.
