Elder Law Today Show #4 Long Term Care Planning - The Way to Avoid Nursing Home Care

In the fourth
installment of his podcast, Elder Law Today, Yale Hauptman, a
practicing New Jersey elder law attorney, discusses how long term
care planning actually decreases the likelihood of ever needing
nursing home care.  Learn how the long term care system actually
works to push people towards nursing homes when they have no more
money.   Medicaid home based benefits often pay only a part of the
cost of aides needed on a 24 hour 7 day a week basis, but will pay
the entire cost of care if provided in a nursing home setting.  It
is, therefore, important to plan ahead to have the funds available to
be able to stay at home.

Yale
also reviews for listeners an unknown Veterans Administration benefit
for eligible Veterans that can provide as much as $1800 per month in
additional income to cover the cost of home aides and assisted living
care.  The Veterans Aid and Attendance program can help qualified
seniors preserve their much needed assets.  But Yale cautions that
one must keep an eye on the next level of care so as not to
jeopardize eligibility for other benefit programs down the road. 
This requires the coordination of a long term care plan to meet all
levels of care, not just the current one.

In the second segment
Yale interviews Angie Hicks of Angie’s List, a website offering
reviews by consumers of local home improvement contractors.  Yale and
Angie talk about how Angie’s List is seeing more inquiries in
recent years by children who need help finding services for their
parents who live long distances away.  Seeing the aging of America,
Angie tells Yale that Angie’s List now offers ratings of
various elder care services to assist families who are faced with the
task of caring for the elderly members of the family unit from a
distance.

Click here to listen to the show.

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