Articles Posted in Elder Law

According to a new article published by Financial Planning, “How to Fix LTC Insurance” claims that the best way to make long-term care insurance accessible to more seniors, as well as affordable, is to integrate the use of short-term elimination periods. The Director of Research at the Pinnacle Advisory Group is claiming that the use of this often avoided measure may be the key for more seniors to be able to use long-term care insurance for their medical needs.

Purpose of LTC Insurance

Originally, the purpose of long-term care insurance was to guard against the “high-impact but lower-probability risk of needing long-term care assistance at an advanced age.” When this insurance was introduced, the thought was that a small number of seniors would need long-term care, but those who did would face incredibly high medical costs.

Most of the questions surrounding elder care revolve around who will take care of that senior or determining where that senior will reside. However, a more important question that the elderly should be asking is how can they take care of themselves for as long as possible without becoming dependent on the assistance of someone else. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and other organizations have put together a list of tips for keeping seniors active and independent longer as they age.

Improve Your Fitness Level

According to the CDC, falls are the leading cause of injury among seniors ages 65 and older. Consequently, falls are also one of the biggest threats to independent living for the elderly. In fact, in 2013 over 2.5 million seniors were treated in emergency rooms for injuries related to falls and 20,000 people died as a result.

Few people are aware that a nursing home has the power to file for guardianship over its residents. Because guardianship cases are difficult to gain access to or track through the court system the rate at which this occurs is difficult to ascertain. However, research is emerging that shows that this practice is becoming routine for nursing home facilities that have issues with financing the care of their long-term residents.

Nursing Home Guardianship Research

Researchers at Hunter College completed a review of New York state guardianship court data and conducted interviews with seniors that have shown that nursing homes are commonly filing for guardianship over their patients when long-term care costs become an issue. This practice is underscoring the increased power that nursing home facilities have over their residents and their families in regards to the financing of long-term care.

According to researchers at Georgetown University and Penn State University, over seventy percent of seniors in America over the age of 65 will need some type of long-term care in their lifetime, either at an assisted living facility or nursing home. However, according to a new study only a fraction of those people should be purchasing long-term care insurance, and the authors boldly claim that “individuals should not buy insurance.” So how should an elder decide if long-term health insurance is the right course of action?

Long-Term Care Insurance Study

According to the study published by Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research, only nineteen percent of men and 31% of women should purchase long-term care insurance. The reasons for this bold statement come from a variety of factors. In addressing the discrepancy between men and women, females are statistically likely to live longer so they are also more likely to need to purchase the insurance.

With the number of elderly people in the United States growing at a fast rate, it is becoming common knowledge that most seniors wish to stay out of nursing homes and similar facilities as long as possible. In addition, research has shown that seniors who stay in their own homes or communities tend to stay the healthiest, physically and mentally, longer on average than those who do not. As a result, one of the hottest new trends in real estate is having the added amenity of an in-law apartment.

In-Law Apartments

For domestic and foreign buyers alike, a growing trend in real estate amenities is to have an in-law unit – an apartment carved out of an existing home or a separate dwelling built on the property meant specifically for aging parents and in-laws. The benefit is tri-fold: the adult children get the peace of mind of having their parents nearby, the elderly parents get to remain out of nursing home facilities, and the extra accommodations are adding value to the property.

For many seniors around the country who still live at home, the biggest challenge in keeping from going hungry is not having the money to buy food or being able to prepare it, but being able to chew. The first of its kind, a pilot program is aimed at researching and helping fix seniors’ oral health. Being called “eye-opening,” the program is offering firsthand knowledge of what experts had only guessed at being elderly dental concerns.

Oral Health Study

The nonprofit food delivery service Citymeals-on-Wheels joined with the Columbia University College of Dental Medicine to conduct the study on seniors’ oral health. The pilot program has been funded by a $50,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health, and it involves both phone interviews in addition to dental house calls for low-income seniors. Many of the participants in the study have not seen a dentist in years, and some in decades.

As people age and children leave the house, many parents entering retirement age use the opportunity to downsize their home and belongings. Rather than downsizing all at once, a growing trend among seniors is to do so in steps over a period of years. In earlier generations, the elderly usually downsized all at once and only once. Now, an overwhelming number of older people are taking a more gradual approach to downsizing, choosing to reduce a house or career but not doing so all at once.

Trends in Downsizing

Rather than selling the house and moving to a warmer climate, many downsizing elders are opting to stay in the same neighborhood or at least the same town. A survey by the AARP’s Public Policy Institute found that 87% of those age 65 years old and older, and 71% of those ages 50 to 64, preferred to stay close to their longtime neighborhoods instead of making the traditional choice of packing up and moving to a resort area or assisted living facility.

Caregiving is about more than just tending to the physical needs of an elderly parent. If your parent is also dealing with dementia or another degenerative disease, you must also prepare to cope with effects on both the body and mind. In the event that your parent becomes incapacitated, you need to decide whether your or someone that you trust will fill the decision making role. The ability to do so comes in the form of a Power of Attorney document.

How to Make a Power of Attorney

It is vitally important that you and your parent discuss and designate a power of attorney before incapacitation occurs. A power of attorney (POA) is a formal, legally binding agreement between the person who needs it (“grantor”) and the person designated to act on the grantor’s behalf (“agent”). An experienced attorney will be able to draft a POA for you and your parent, especially if there are financial matters or assets that may complicate decision making.