Continuing Care at Home Gives Older Adults the Best of Both Worlds
Want to stay in your home as long as possible but also desire easy access to assistance and healthcare services later? The continuing care at home model could be the solution.
Gifting Assets Can Create Five-Year Lookback Period Issues
Today is Giving Tuesday, a global movement celebrating generosity, observed on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving. Many older adults use the holiday season as an opportunity to give away some of their cash or other valuable assets to loved ones or charitable causes. And while these gifts are no-doubt appreciated by their recipients, there are reasons [...]
Long-Term Care Staffing Shortages Have Far-Reaching Implications
You’ve likely seen the “now hiring” signs in businesses of all kinds. The most recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has the unemployment rate at just 3.6 percent for May 2022. While it is good news that so few people are out of work, there is a flip side to that coin [...]
What is Memory Care and What Are the Odds I Might Need It?
According to data from the Alzheimer’s Association, there are approximately 6.2 million Americans age 65 and older who currently are living with Alzheimer's disease, which is the most common type of dementia. A large majority of Alzheimer's patients are 75 years old or older (72 percent), and almost two out of three Alzheimer’s patients are [...]
A Look at State Rankings for Long-Term Care Services
In my conversations with people who are exploring their senior living options, I've had many people ask about which states have the best long-term care. The Long-Term Services & Supports State Scorecard for 2020 puts some objective numbers to this common query. The scorecard was produced by the AARP Foundation, The Commonwealth Fund, and The [...]
Can I Use My Long-Term Care Insurance in a CCRC?
This is a question I am often asked, and it seems I’ve been getting the question with more frequency lately. Although I’ve written on this topic a few times before, I want to give a concise overview of what you need to know about using your long-term care insurance policy in a CCRC, including some [...]
Examining Key Figures on Long-Term Care Insurance
Last year, 350,000 Americans bought a long-term care insurance (LTCi) policy, and over 7 million people currently maintain a policy. This is a fairly low adoption rate given that there are over 80 million Americans who are age 55+. Recent data from the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance (AALTCI) reveals some interesting facts about [...]
Which is Better: An Independent Caregiver or Home Care Agency?
Long-term care is generally defined as a range of supportive services needed to meet an individual’s personal care needs over an extended period of time. Often, long-term care is not medical care; instead, it is help with everyday personal tasks, sometimes referred to as activities of daily living (ADLs) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs), although [...]
One Word That Should be Removed from Senior Living Lingo
Are there certain words that make you feel a certain way, triggering either positive or negative feelings? Family, work, home, taxes, and vacation might be a few examples. Working in the senior living space, I think a lot about the specific terminology that is used within our industry vertical, as well as the aging-related language [...]
Contrasting Approaches to Planning for Long-Term Care Needs
In last week’s post, I highlighted a recent article that discussed the advice that caregivers of a family member who has Alzheimer’s disease would share with others who are newly embarking on this labor of love. Much of the advice centered around the emotional and financial challenges that caregiving can present and the need to [...]