What’s the right direction for you in planning for the help you might need in the future? Seven in ten of us will need long-term care at some point in our lives. Here are possible paths for covering the assistance you may need. How Will You Obtain the Care You Need? … [Read more...]
6 Important Estate Planning Considerations – Part 2: Long-Term Care
Many considerations must be addressed in an estate plan, not just who gets whatever’s left after your death. Long-Term Care expenses are an ever-increasing concern. Your estate plan should consider how those expenses would get paid. This article looks at several ways to plan for those expenses. 6 Important Estate Planning Considerations – Part 2: Long-Term Care … [Read more...]
How Are You Planning for Long-Term Care (LTC) Expenses?
What’s the right direction for you in planning for future medical expenses? The odds are even that you’ll need long-term care (LTC) after age 65, at least for a while. Here are possible paths for covering those potential costs. How Are You Planning for Long-Term Care (LTC) Expenses? … [Read more...]
Speaking of End of Life Choices
It is incredibly difficult to raise the topic of end of life considerations. At some point, someone will have to broach the subject, even if Mom or Dad have already made all of the necessary arrangements. It’s far different than retirement topics; these conversations have to do with funeral and burial arrangements, do not resuscitate orders, powers of attorney for medical decisions – the really tough topics. If you think about it and the mindset we’re in when we plan for retirement, it’s one … [Read more...]
Assisted Living: You Have Options
Estate planning obviously involves preparing your financial assets for eventual distribution to your heirs after your passing. However, it is best to take a comprehensive approach and consider all the eventualities of aging when you are making preparations for the future. While some people do pass away suddenly or relatively suddenly many people experience a slow decline. This is especially true when you reach an advanced age, and more and more people are living into their mid-80s and beyond … [Read more...]
Possible Cuts To Medicaid Leave Seniors Wondering
A lot of people think of Medicaid as being a federal program that is in place to assist people who have financial need get the medical treatment that they need. They assume that everything that senior citizens require is going to be taken care of by Medicare. The reality is that this is only partially true. Howard Gleckman, who is a Resident Fellow at the Urban Institute, recently published an article in the Kaiser Health News that shed some interesting light on how heavily senior citizens … [Read more...]
Medicaid: Spending Down And Looking Back
Elder law attorneys have been watching closely as the costs associated with long-term care continue to rise, and it is certainly a source of growing concern. If you are not aware of how high the cost of long-term care has become you'll probably sit up and take notice when you hear the facts. According to a study that was released by the MetLife Mature Market Institute, in 2010 the average charge for a yearlong stay in a private room in a nursing home in the United States was over $83,500. This … [Read more...]
HECM Can Fund Assisted Living
If you want to be comprehensively prepared for the future you can't overlook things that you may not be especially anxious to think about. There are those who cross their fingers, stick their heads in the sand, and hope for the best, but these are the people who find themselves totally unprepared for contingencies that arise. Making prudent preparations for things that may or may not happen is wise because these advance plans will be welcome should they be needed, and if they are not all the … [Read more...]
Choosing A Long-Term Care Facility In Advance
When you are planning for your retirement years you are probably envisioning travel and leisure times, and this is as it should be. But if you want to be comprehensively prepared you would do well to consider all of the eventualities of aging. There may come a time that people call the "twilight years" when your life slows down and you may in fact find it difficult or impossible to take care of your personal needs without assistance. Though this is not the most pleasant thought in the world, it … [Read more...]
Healthy Spouse & Medicaid
There are those who discuss estate planning as though it was simply a matter of positioning unlimited assets in an optimal manner so that you are prepared to address all of the eventualities of aging. If you do have this type of financial freedom that is fantastic, but the reality is that very few people have access to that mythical "blank check" that they can pull out as many times as may be necessary. So for the vast majority of people, careful planning is necessary because the expenses that … [Read more...]
