What Nobody Will Tell You About Elder Care. What makes my Action and Implementation Program unique is that I look at elder care from the caregiver’s point of view. My experience and that of many other care givers is summarized below:
Contact Medicare 1-800-633-4227 or Medicare.gov for information about Medicare and how it can help pay for your parent’s care. Medicare paid for my father-in-law’s dialysis, hospital stays, rehab stays, hospital bed rental and visits to the doctor. Between Medicare and AARP supplemental insurance most of his care was covered. We estimate that his care over [...]
Medicaid is a Federal and state health insurance program for people with limited financial resources. In determining what are financial assets your elderly parent’s home, furniture, car or insurance policies with a cash value of $5,000 or less are not counted as assets. The guidelines for what is covered vary from state to state and [...]
Medicare HMO If you don’t want Medi-gap insurance you can enroll your elderly parent in a Medicare HMO. He/she has to keep Medicare A & B but they use the doctors and hospitals in the HMO. One nice thing about an HMO is that it covers preventative care that is not covered by Medicare. An [...]
One time when we were taking care of my father-in-law I was explaining the costs involved in elder care, a befuddled person asked me, “Well, doesn’t Medicare cover everything?” The short answer is that Medicare does cover a lot but it doesn’t cover everything.
A recent report on the local news station said that out of pocket expenses for caring for an elderly parent averages $550 a year. These are non-reimbursable expenses and they are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what elder care costs.
I wrote many times about the need to plan as much as possible for what you have to do to provide excellent elder care. I also advocated that you get your relatives on board to give you the support you need. A recent article in a local newspaper describes a service has taken both ideas [...]
If you have to start providing home care for an elderly parent(s) and you haven’t done the financial planning, there are three easy ways to get a handle on the process.
I was at a luncheon the other day and I spoke with two sons-in-law from two different families about their experiences with elder care. Their stories perfectly illustrate the two different approaches to home care for the elderly.
In trying to come to grips with home care for an elderly parent, planning in advance goes a long way to making the whole process less stressful. Talking to your parents about what they want is immeasurably useful. In the previous post, I looked at two suggestions that Dan Taylor uses in his book, The [...]