The Laws of your Money with Ann-Margaret Episode 17

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The following is a paid podcast. iHeartRadio's hosting of this
podcast constitutes neither an endorsement of the products offered or
the ideas expressed. The following program is sponsored by New
York Priority Medical Care. Now it's time for the Laws
of Your Money, a weekly call in show with legal

(00:20):
tips to help you protect your money. Here's your host
and Margaret Caroza.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, and welcome to the Laws of your Money. This
is a show dedicated to protecting you from legal and
financial mayhem when it comes to personal finance. I think
the most important thing to think about is are we

(00:46):
protected legally. Legal protections are extremely important if we want
to protect what we have earned and invested from long
term care costs, from taxes, capital gains taxes, estate taxes,

(01:07):
not to mention ordinary lawsuits. We all know we're living
in a very litigious society, but do you know that
you are more likely to be in a court battle
with a former loved one than with a stranger. When
finances and loved ones come into contact, the results can

(01:34):
be explosive. So we're gonna break down all of the
things that we can do to protect ourselves legally. I
am asset protection attorney and Margaret Carosa, joined today by
my esteemed co host, the Reverend Paul Slatcus. Welcome back

(01:54):
to the program, Paul, Good morning, Anne, and we have
a special guest joining us in studio, doctor William Duke,
a renowned cheriatrician. Welcome to the program. Bill, nice to
be here, Thank you. So let's jump in and Paul,

(02:15):
I'm going to put you on the spot. What do
you think the number two human fear is.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
Rejection?

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Bill? What do you think the number two human fear.

Speaker 4 (02:30):
Is growing old? Perhaps without help?

Speaker 2 (02:36):
The number two fear is the fear of aging. And
you know, I think some of what all of us
who work with seniors try to do, and all of
us will hopefully be seniors one day, we want to

(03:00):
put some protections in place, and we want to roll
up our sleeves and do what we can ahead of
time so that our later years will be carried out
on our own terms, that we're not going to be
subject to someone else necessarily making decisions for us. So

(03:26):
what can the me of today do for the me
of hopefully decades from now? And joining our conversation, I'm
very excited to have her is Sarah Gorenstein, who is
the co founder of a very necessary and innovative company

(03:50):
called Lizzie Care. And what Sarah and her team do
is to connect individuals and their families with services in
the home to maximize their chances of being successful. Sarah,
welcome to the program.

Speaker 5 (04:12):
Thank you so much for having me Anne.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, So, how long has Lizzie Care been in business?

Speaker 5 (04:19):
So, Lizzie Care started about two and a half years ago.
My background as a geriatric care manager, and I was
fortunate enough to be connected with one of my co founders,
Ollie Fielding, who had developed an app, a technology platform

(04:41):
for helping people to connect with other caregivers for people
who are living specifically at home with a diagnosis of
dementia or Alzheimer's.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
Okay, do you help other people or do you specific
like concentrate on dementia related illnesses.

Speaker 5 (05:04):
Well, over the past two and a half years, our
services have expanded, so yes, we definitely help other people
age in place at home and bring services to them
as specialty is with the dementia population because of their
specific needs that we have learned over those last couple

(05:27):
of years that a lot of the services that we're
able to provide for people who have memory loss, are
also very appropriate for people who are aging in place
without that memory loss.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
Would you say that most of the seniors that you're helping,
are they men or women or an equal split?

Speaker 5 (05:49):
They are actually an equal split. It's an interesting, interesting question.
The disease of Alzheimer's does affect the feet population in
higher numbers, but our current roster is about fifty to
fifty split.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
So on my website and that's my Asset Protection Attorney
dot com, I have an article called a State Planning
and the Single Girl, because you know, the demographics are
that as women, we are more likely to be on

(06:31):
our own in later life than men are. If I've
never married, I'm going to be alone. If I'm divorced,
I'm going to be alone. If I am currently married,
I have an eighty percent chance of outliving my spouse.
So I think it's really important for women out there

(06:55):
to educate ourselves, to connect with resee sources like Lizzycare
and you know, go on to your website. What is
the website, Srah.

Speaker 5 (07:08):
Yes, So our website is www dot hilizzi dot com.
That's h I l i Zzy dot com.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
And what types of services, uh do you connect families with.

Speaker 5 (07:29):
So we really pride ourselves on being that one stop solution.
So when a family is managing the care of a
loved one and they are either residing at home. We
have actually helped people who are living in senior living
communities as well, but quite often families or support systems

(07:52):
are not local, and we can bring in all the
types of services that somebody will need to support that
aging process. So that could be you know what we
think of traditionally as care. It may be somebody coming
in to help with housekeeping. It may even be somebody

(08:15):
coming in to do dentistry or hairdressing. There are many
things that can be brought to the home that you
may not realize, and we provide people to speak with.
So we have a team of coaches who both the

(08:36):
care recipient and their families can speak to and discuss
and plan for how they want that care to look
over the coming few months, over the coming few years.
And what's lovely for us is some of our original
patients who we started working with two and a half

(08:57):
years ago remain patients with us as they remain under
our care, and we have built amazing relationships with them
and their family. Well listen, support them through what.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
You do is so important and I take my hat
off to you. You're out there, you know, enabling people
to be where they want to be. So how can
people reach you? Can you give us the website again?

Speaker 5 (09:26):
Of course yes, they can either email me directly Sarah
at Highlizzi dot com. That's Sarah with an H or
they can visit the website where our contact number is
as well, and it's www dot h i l i
Zzy dot com.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
Sarah, thank you so much for joining us. I'm going
to be inviting you back, brilliant.

Speaker 5 (09:53):
Thank you so much. It was lovely to speak with you.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
You too, Take care. Okay, So in studio our geriatrician,
what do you think Bill about you know, how do
we maximize our our chances of being at home? And
do you think or does it depend do you think

(10:16):
that being at home is better than being in a
nursing facility?

Speaker 4 (10:24):
Well, clearly being at home is better, specifically particularly for
dementia patients who are when they're at home, they're in
a familiar situation. One of the really important things about
this service that we were just talking about is that
I've always had to keep somebody at home. Is really

(10:45):
all about the caregivers and and the access to service
that that that this the service Lizzy Care Lizzy Care
provides is that that people have the help and support
they need to take care of that person at home. Now, remember,
dementia is a degenerative, progressive problem, so the needs get

(11:11):
greater and greater with time, and that's why services like
this are so important.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
Now, what I really liked about Lizzie Karen I've been
on the website is that, you know, we're getting away
from I need help. Okay, bring a caregiver in, someone
to help me eat, someone to help me shower, someone
to help dress me. But what about the things that

(11:39):
make me feel like myself?

Speaker 3 (11:42):
You know?

Speaker 2 (11:42):
Can we get a hairdresser in there? Can we get
a manicurist in there? Can we get a personal shopper
to come to the house. Obviously, yes, we need some
money for these things, which is why it's very, very
important and for us to have a nest egg, for

(12:03):
us to have a protected nest egg, for excuse me,
for those of us who have homes. We want to
protect these things to the greatest extent possible, because is
it true that we are really living longer.

Speaker 4 (12:20):
Bill. Indeed, we are, and that actually makes Alzheimer's disease
and dementia an even more important demographic issue. The older
that we get, the more likely it is that we
will have problems with memory. So the downside of living

(12:41):
longer is that sometimes that happens. I want to bring
up a concept, and that's vanity. Now, vanity generally has
a bad rap because we think of vanity is a
bad thing. But in the elderly, it's important that you
know they can get hairdressers into the house, that they
Not only is it feedback well on the patient who says, oh, look,
I look good, but also it indicates that they're still

(13:05):
concerned about, you know, their own well being and how
they look, and they're taking part in life by paying potentially.

Speaker 2 (13:14):
Really a really, really good point. Now, Paul, let me
ask you, in a vacuum in the future, many years
from now, if you did need some help, do you
think you would prefer to be at home?

Speaker 3 (13:29):
I would prefer definitely to be at home one maybe
not one hundred percent, though, if it was a very
good facility, and if I was alone, or maybe even
as a married couple, but probably if I was alone
and it was a good socialization. I mean, my mom
went to a residence and she was playing a piano

(13:53):
there and making people happy, and you know, home, you're
by yourself. So that's one thing. I will also like
to say, rejection. I said rejection because of a fear
for people getting older. Yeah, people won't be there for me.
That was why I said, that's a scary time. That's
why you need to protect yourself and things like this,

(14:14):
like legally and so on.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
Well, I think it comes down to you need to
be there for you. And on my website again my
Asset Protection Attorney dot com, I have my living will
on my website and you're free to download that, change
it up, replace the name, make it your own. In

(14:39):
New York State, where I practice, the living will is
a little bit subjective. A medical provider does not have
to honor a living will in the state of New York.
They do have to honor a properly drafted healthcare proxy
in the hospital. If I can't speak for myself, but

(15:02):
I have this healthcare proxy saying that Paul can speak
for me and make decisions, that hospital must honor the
healthcare proxy. So it's the living will where the micromanager
can and should come out. And I put in my
living will the statement in the event that I require

(15:25):
long term care, I prefer for my care to be
provided in my home unless it's not practicable.

Speaker 3 (15:34):
Why is that different than a will? Is that different
than a regular will?

Speaker 2 (15:38):
A regular will wax up my stuff? Right? Who's going
to get my books? Who's going to get my piano?
A living will is a health care advanced directive, and
the various states have different levels of living will laws.

(15:58):
New York it's a little bit loose, a little bit subjective.
So the way to think about a living will in
New York is that it's really a blueprint for the
future care and feeding of me.

Speaker 5 (16:12):
Right.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
Yeah, So go onto the website. You can download both
of those documents, make them your own, and you're going
to feel a little bit more empowered and in charge
of this, and it's going to be a little less frightening.
So I want to move to We're talking about living
at home, and most of us would want to be

(16:37):
at home. And I would imagine, you know, Gene Hackman
wanted to be at home. What do you think went
wrong there? Bill? So here's a couple. He and his
wife were living in their beautiful home, and they died
within days of each other.

Speaker 4 (16:58):
What happened well interesting and probably a lot we don't
know yet, but one of the things that went wrong
was that the significantly younger spouse died before the older
patient with dementia. I think it was also clouded by
the fact that since he was a famous person, his

(17:19):
deterioration was sort of being hidden from the rest of
the world.

Speaker 2 (17:22):
Interesting.

Speaker 4 (17:24):
But I want to briefly jump back and talk about
something Paul brought up, and that's socialization. And this is
where I differentiate a little bit between patients with dementia
and patients not with dementia. And I bring up the
example of my aunt who was in the nursing home
my medical director of after hospitalization, and she wanted to
get back to her apartment where she lived for seventy

(17:46):
years here in Manhattan. And I remember, you know, in
the nursing home. While she was still there, she had
a boyfriend, she was able to speak with people who
spoke the three languages she spoke, she had activities, and
then finally we got her home and she'd call me
every week and say, oh, they're having a party at
the nursing home, can you come and pick me up? So,

(18:09):
you know, with a dementia patient, I think it is
really medically way better for them to be at home.
But for a patient who is not demented, the socialization
aspects that you see in assisted livings or even some
nursing homes is really positive for them.

Speaker 2 (18:25):
Clearly, that's a really great point.

Speaker 4 (18:27):
Clearly, the mistake I guess that was made here was
there wasn't a backup plan for mister Hackman, and when
his younger wife passed away, he was completely helpless to
take care of himself, and there was no one checking
on them. And I think that had to do with
the self consciousness of a famous person becoming demented.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
Well, you know, you're the medical professional, but I can't
help but think. We have two people found on the floor,
so there were two falls, and if they had some
type of like pendant alert that is triggered with acceleration

(19:10):
you know by a fall, that maybe there could have
been help on the way.

Speaker 4 (19:16):
Well, just as in your field, people, the mistake people
make is not planning ahead. I think that they really
didn't feel that the younger spouse wouldn't be there to
help him if he had a problem. But there are
a lot of technological advancements these days that allow us
to sort of monitor people from afar. You know, there's

(19:40):
pressure sensors in beds, so you know when mom or
dad got out of bed. A lot of people put
cameras in the home now, which are very unobtrusive but
can monitor everything that's going on.

Speaker 2 (19:52):
And allow a parent to be connected to children and
other loved ones, you know, with a screen that they
can press a button and see their daughter in California. Yeah,
definitely a whole new world. And not all of the
things that we need to do to prepare to age

(20:13):
at home need to cost a lot of money. There
are charitable and philanthropic organizations such as the United Way
that has a whole program to come into the home
and get it set up for aging at home. Here
in New York, we have the Met Council on Jewish

(20:36):
Poverty that will help people. And I'm going to put
my former legislative colleagues on the spot by giving out
the Albany tie line so you can be connected to
your legislators who can Hopefully they have constituent case workers

(20:58):
in all of the offices who can tell you what
programs are available in your communities to help you. And
that eight hundred number, they're probably going to change the
number after I give it out, so make the call
quickly tomorrow morning. It's one eight hundred five to five
one three three eight zero. So you're going to be

(21:22):
connected to Albany. Give them your address and they will
connect you to your assembly person's district office. And it's
really a great source to be connected with resources.

Speaker 3 (21:38):
Bill brings up, Sorry, this is something else you. Bill
brought up a great point mentioning dementia, good probability should
be at home, but the other potential opportunities for socialization
and facilities actually leads to protecting your assets, protecting your money,
because if you don't have enough money for the fourteen

(22:00):
thousand dollars that you bring up very often, how can
you even go How could my mother have even gone
to a nursing home? Okay, And so it's if you
don't protect yourself, you have only yourself to think about it.
What is it over Oliver with If you don't make
a trust, then well it's serious stuff.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
Failing to plan is planning to fail right. No. And
the other thing that I think is really important to
bring up when we talk about being at home alone
is that we're potentially subjecting ourselves to scam artists and
con artist and we know that deed theft is rampant

(22:44):
out there. I have occasion as an elder law attorney,
I develop, you know, close relationships with a lot of
my clients, and we develop friendships and sometimes I am
super involved in their lives. And there was one guy

(23:05):
I told you about him at the time bill. It
was a number of years ago, where he would come
to my office fairly regularly to change his will, and
you know, he would tweak the amounts going to the
various charities. He didn't have any family, and I think
he was really just coming to my office for a

(23:27):
cup of coffee and a little socialization. And he named
me as the executor of his will. After he passed away,
I'm paying all of his bills. And there was this
one recurring monthly bill that I couldn't make heads or
tails of. It was three initials like JT, K, and

(23:49):
it was about one hundred dollars a month that he'd
been paying. So he had all of his bills and
shoe boxes going back to the year of the flood,
and for twenty years he had been paying money to
con artists. Because I found the original letter. Dear mister Blank,

(24:13):
you sing in the All Saints Episcopal Choir, and you
may not be aware that you are breaking federal copyright law.
If you pay us a monthly licensing fee, you can
continue to be a part of the All Saints Episcopal Choir.
So this guy, he was not dumb, but he was

(24:36):
vaguely aware. Yeah, music is copyrighted, and he thought he
needed to make these payments. So we need to be
on guard. I think we need to have a network,
and part of what we want to do before we're
elderly is really gathering information, informing ourselves. Have a file folder,

(25:01):
who are the dentists that make house calls, Start putting
a plan in place so that you know everyone's not
scrambling down the road. So now I want to pivot
back to you, Bill and ask you, what are some
tips that you give patients to not necessarily only live longer,

(25:28):
but to expand our vital years. And I'm just going
to caution you that if you say anything bad about
my chardonnay, I'm asking Bruce and Noah to shut your mic.
So what are some non Shardenay related tips to keep
us in our homes?

Speaker 4 (25:48):
Well, of course, what everyone always says is to stay active,
and that means going on a power walk as often
as possible. They say that thirty minutes, three days a
week is already enough to elevate your level of fitness,
and you can never divorce the brain from the body,

(26:09):
so getting the blood flowing exercising is very important. Another
very important aspect is to continue learning new things. Take
up hobbies that you haven't done before. Play a musical instrument,
work on a language.

Speaker 2 (26:25):
Sure, Paul, you play the piano, so you're set there,
You go, well, maybe it's time you learn how to
play the trombone.

Speaker 3 (26:31):
I played a soxophone also, But you got a good
point there.

Speaker 4 (26:37):
There has been a lot of research on diet and
how it affects our aging process as well as dimension.
A plant based diet supposedly is associated with less occurrence
of dementia. Alcohol in small numbers is.

Speaker 2 (26:57):
Acceptable, okaye. Stay off.

Speaker 4 (27:03):
Sleep is very important, although many folks have disrupted sleep
for various reasons as they age, so that's as sometimes problematic.
You know, reduction of stress and good strong socialization and
family relationships is also associated. Actually, the presence of a

(27:24):
female daughter is associated with the longer life.

Speaker 2 (27:28):
Interestingly, Yeah, I don't have any of those, Paul.

Speaker 3 (27:33):
You do and a granddaughters.

Speaker 4 (27:36):
Boys are stolen away by their women.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
I don't know, you know, I think I have two sons,
and I feel like I have a one hundred percent
chance that they're going to be too busy. I mean,
this is, you know, not because they're bad people. They're
not bad people, but the modern reality is that adult

(28:00):
children do not have the time or the wherewithal to
really be counted on in a sustained, meaningful way in
terms of a care plan.

Speaker 4 (28:13):
So that's a very common problem. And a lot of
times the children live in different parts of the country.
You know, there are a lot of people.

Speaker 2 (28:22):
Who are What I tell families is your children should
be your children, you know, don't put the caregiving mantle
on them. Okay, So with that, before we wrap for today,
I want to ask you, Paul, you're working on a
big Earth Day project.

Speaker 3 (28:43):
Tell us about that coming together beautifully Actually with the
borough president Mark Levine in a couple of minutes. Who
has talking about the state of Manhattan. But we in
Manhattan Times Square. April twenty second, we in partnership with
earth Day, out of work of about a billion people
get connected to Earthday. We're doing a big concert and exposition.

Speaker 2 (29:06):
Join us. Okay, and with that, thank you everyone for
tuning in. I hope you reach out to me during
the week my Asset Protection Attorney dot com and join
us next week ten thirty am wor seven ten. Have
a great day everyone.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
The preceding program was sponsored by New York Priority Medical Care.
The preceding was a paid podcast. iHeartRadio's hosting of this
podcast constitutes neither an endorsement of the products offered or
the ideas expressed.