Articles Posted in Elder Law

CVS Health Corp. CEO Larry Melo recently announced that the company is investing billions into the purchase of a nursing home pharmacy operator in an attempt to transform into a dominant healthcare player for senior needs. CVS purchased the company Omnicare, Inc. in its bid to outgrow CVS’ drugstore chain persona into something more all-encompassing for healthcare needs and focus more on the growing population of aging seniors in this country.

Recent Changes to CVS

This is not the first major change that CVS has made to its healthcare focus in recent years. In 2011, the company announced that it will no longer be selling cigarettes in its mission to improve its consumers’ health. It also changed its name from CVS Health to CVS Caremark and aggressively expanded the number of in-store health clinics. By 2017, CVS aims to have another 600 in-store health clinics for consumers and in 2013 the company purchased a drug-infusion company to expand its healthcare competencies.

The United Health Foundation, a nonprofit organization that is focused on improving healthcare and overall health, published its third annual report earlier this year that analyzes how well each state across the country is taking care of their seniors. Based on thirty-five different benchmarks, the study breaks down each individual state’s strengths and weaknesses for various elder care needs in addition to comparing states as a whole.

Elder Care in the United States

Almost one in seven citizens in the United States is now 65 years old or older, and the need for quality checks on our nation’s elder care system is increasing. By 2030, it is estimated that over one-fifth of the country’s population will be elderly. By 2050, it is estimated that nearly 83.7 million people will be 65 years old or older, more than double the elderly population in 2012.

Millions of people across the country are currently part of the “sandwich generation” They are caring for their children and simultaneously caring for an elderly parent. Despite the fact that so many people are struggling to handle this responsibility, there are very few resources that caregivers can use for support. This article highlights six things that a caregiver can do to prepare for some of the most common stressful situations that occur with elder care.

Have a Talk with Your Parents

Before cognitive issues or even caregiving needs arise, you should sit down and have a conversation with your parents about everything regarding their care. You should discuss their wants and needs regarding caregiving as well as review their finances, estate plan, health issues, end-of-life decisions, and more.

A new study has shown that a program that gives families with loved ones who suffer from dementia the tools necessary to help better care for them has lowered the use of nursing homes. This new program uses a telephone-based program where non-medical managers use assessments and evidence-based protocols to help educate and offer support to people treating family members with dementia and other cognitive impairments. This study highlights the need for new dementia care programs and proves that this type of system can be implemented on a large scale.

Results of the Study

According to one of the primary researchers of the study, almost fifteen percent of seniors over the age of seventy years old have some form of dementia. The study looked at around 250 caregivers that enlisted in the program and 250 caregivers in their normal routine that did not use the program. At the end of the study, the research showed that the caregivers enrolled in the new program were more satisfied with the level of care and had more confidence in their ability to care for their loved one.

Announced this month, Apple, Inc. and IBM are coming together on a new project that will bring iPads and custom apps to Japan’s aging seniors. The companies are using Japan as the launch pad for their new system before possibly expanding the program to other countries. The country is a perfect place to test out the new system because by 2055, experts estimate that almost forty percent of Japan’s population will be senior citizens and already over one-quarter of its residents are 65 years old or older.

New Technology for Japan’s Elderly

The two American companies announced a partnership with Japan Post Group, the country’s largest health and life insurance company, to bring specialized iPads and apps to the nation’s elderly. The goal of the partnership is to connect millions of Japan’s seniors with services and tools that they need to stay healthy and in their homes. The CEO of Japan Post Group admitted that “Among all the nations in the world, the issue of aging generations is most active in Japan. We need real solutions.”

Most people consider elderly issues as problems with nursing homes, Medicaid, Medicare or Social Security. While these are important problems that need to be addressed with our nation’s seniors, the number of elderly residents in cities is forcing them to rethink everything about their infrastructure.

Growing Number of Elderly in Cities

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has released a new report detailing the growing number of seniors in our country’s largest cities. According to their report, between 2001 and 2011 the number of elderly ages 65 years and older living in well-developed cities has jumped by 24%. This is more than three times the rate of growth for these cities overall. By 2050, the report estimates that over one-quarter of these cities’ populations will consist of elderly people, and the fastest growing population is seniors ages eighty years old and older.

Few people realize that nursing homes can file for guardianship over their elderly or disabled residents in order to collect on unpaid debts. Even fewer experts have done research on how often nursing homes initiate proceedings or track their progress through the courts. However, what research has been completed on nursing home guardianships show that not only does the practice happen often, but it seems to be increasing in use.

Nursing Home Guardianship Statistics

The Brookdale Center of Healthy Aging and Longevity has been researching how often these types of cases occur in the state of New York. While it has not released its full report, the Center has stated that its research found that between the years 2002 and 2012, nursing homes accounted for over twelve percent of all guardianship cases in Manhattan. Outside of the city, guardianship petitions by nursing homes over their residents are also a significant percentage of the court requests. Overall, estimates show that as many as two-thirds of all guardianship proceedings across the country are petitioned by an institution or government entity.

In cases of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and other issues with cognition, studies have shown that the ability to perform simple math problems and handling financial matters are often the first skills that slip away. Equally important is the research that shows that as people age, even elders that do not have issues with cognition may reach the point where making financial decisions can become incredibly challenging.

Seniors and Financial Skills

The issue of seniors handling their own financial affairs is significant in this day and age. Currently, there are 44.7 million people in the United States that are 65 years old or older, and they account for fourteen percent of the overall population. In a mere ten years, that number will skyrocket to around 66 million people, and this age group has trillions of dollars in wealth. Unfortunately, many seniors are left to manage their financial affairs on their own, despite losing the ability to do so.

With millions of Baby Boomers reaching retirement age and beyond without any type of plan, many believe that it is too late to begin planning for elder care. Others have unnecessarily spent tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in care and other needs because of the lack of an elder law plan. These are some of the most common misconceptions regarding elder law planning as well as how you or your loved one can avoid them.

It Is Too Late to Plan

For single or married elders, one of the most common and most devastating misconceptions about elder law planning is that it is too late. For seniors that are about to go into nursing home care or are already a resident, most have been informed of the five year look-back period for Medicaid and believe that there is nothing that can be done.

There are more than 44 million people in the United States currently acting as a caregiver for an elderly or disabled loved one, and they devote a significant amount of time, money, and energy to the endeavor. According to researchers over at the Rand Corp. think tank, the informal cost of elder care in the United States that caregivers pay out of their own pocket is more than $522 billion every year and over 30 billion hours of labor. The personal and opportunity costs on caregivers are unfortunately being ignored, and it is causing serious problems for caregivers across the country.

Informal Costs of Elder Care

The Rand Corp. came to this amount by calculating the cost of unpaid work that caregivers perform for their elderly loved ones in addition to the opportunity cost of caregivers, calculated as “paychecks that could be pocketed if the caregivers were working and not taking elders to the doctor, monitoring their health and helping them with daily activities.” In total, the $522 billion spent on elder care every year by caregivers is more than the entirety of federal spending on Medicare in 2013.