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.

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