# Planning for long term care



## Virginiagal (Apr 24, 2017)

I posted about this in the thread on retirement investment but it probably needs its own thread. A friend's experience with long term care insurance left me less than impressed with it. Continuing Care communities are great but there are substantial upfront fees. But once you're in, there aren't extra costs to be in assisted living or nursing home care if needed. And in contrast to the long term insurance, you don't have to qualify under certain conditions to get care. In the other thread I asked for ideas and a couple of people talked about Medicaid trusts. But what about other ideas? I took care of my parents in my home when they were in their 80s. They went to day care while I worked. My father had Alzheimer's and my mother had congestive heart failure. Both eventually had to go to a memory care facility (father) and a nursing home (mother) but their stays were months, not years. I feel blessed that I was able to take care of them as long as I did and know they were being well cared for. I had a great uncle and aunt who had a live in helper for years. That arrangement doesn't seem to be common anymore. What do you envision for your final years? Are you making any plans? One obstacle to moving anywhere is that we would have to clean out the attic and basement.


----------



## Phids (Sep 24, 2020)

I am dealing with such an issue with my parents right now. Last fall we got them to leave their house in the Midwest and agree to try out an independent senior facility in the South, but they soon after wanted to move back into their house. However, with their health in decline, we told them to try out the senior facility for a time, and it's a good thing we did. My father has Parkinson's and has recently had a lot of mobility and mental decline, and we are considering moving him into assisted living that is next to the independent living facility. It's a tough situation to deal with when you have parents who are somewhat obstinate, or when you have siblings who each want to have a say in how your parents should live.

Also, if you think that cleaning out your attic/basement is an obstacle to you moving, then realize it will eventually be someone else's problem to deal with if you pass away and it's not taken care of. It's a lot of work to put on someone else, so keep that in mind.


----------



## Virginiagal (Apr 24, 2017)

@Phids Glad that you have your parents closer to you now. Is this a continuing care community or separate facilities? If your father is in assisted living while your mother stays in independent living, it's good she will be close enough to walk over so they can spend time together.

Yes, I know we shouldn't leave the attic and basement for others to clean out. My husband doesn't like to throw things away. Occasionally I can get some things taken out to the trash or to Goodwill. The house was his grandparents' and then his parents' so we have their stuff too. The hard things to get rid of are the Archives.


----------



## Phids (Sep 24, 2020)

@Virginiagal It's funny you're mentioning this now as I am literally in the midst of dealing with these issues (my father had to be put temporarily into rehab to strengthen his mobility because of recent events). There's an assisted living wing at the facility where my parents are staying but they've been living in the independent living wing. Because my father needs more help than my mother, we might see if he can be moved to the assisted living area, and my mother would just have to walk over to visit him. It's all kind of hard to navigate these issues, and it's costly because of the different options and considerations.

We also eventually have to figure out what to do to their house and the stuff in it. This is part of the reason why I've been thinking of cleaning out things that get left behind. In years past I would try to help them get rid of some clutter when I would visit, but they didn't always take kindly to my suggestions. It's all a difficult process. 😒


----------



## Virginiagal (Apr 24, 2017)

@Phids Yes, it's not easy. Since you have siblings, maybe all of you could take the important heirlooms and things with meaning and your parents would appreciate that they're staying in the family.

With a continuing care community, there is an upfront fee (often in six figures) but the cost does not go up if you move from independent living to assisted living or skilled nursing care (other than maybe for more meals). It's an alternative to long term insurance as a way of paying for care. My friend who recently had a hospital stay decided she wanted to be discharged to her apartment (in a continuing care facility) and take advantage of her long term insurance. She ended up paying over $5000 for one week of care from an agency that sent aides to her apartment.. She had forgotten there was a waiting period before insurance would kick in and there were qualifications to be met too. She then went to the health care unit there for several weeks, at no additional cost, and is now back in her apartment. For peace of mind, if you are happy with the facility, continuing care seems a good way to go if you can manage the upfront fees. The long term care insurance, which my friend has been paying on for over 20 years, would cover only about half the cost of 24/7 in home care if and when she qualified and had met the waiting period. It's been a couple of months and she still doesn't know if that one week she paid for will count as part of the waiting period on her policy. A further frustration: the aides would not do laundry because the washers and dryers were down the hall instead of in the apartment.


----------

