August 4, 2025 • 44 mins
Listen in as host Steve Kuker, President of Senior Care Consulting, explains Medicaid, what it is, how it works, how to qualify, and what it pays for relative to needing a long term care community. Then, Steve reviews when to consider moving from home to a senior care community and what to determine before beginning your search. #SeniorCare #SeniorCareLive #SeniorCareConsulting #SeniorLiving #KansasCitySeniorCare #SeniorCarePlacement #SeniorCareAdvisor #Franchise #SeniorCareFranchise (800) 331-6445
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Are you caring for an aging loved one? Are you
a senior searching for answers? Welcome to Senior Care Live,
a program dedicated to you, providing information, education and resources
for seniors and their caregivers. And now America's Senior care consultant,
Steve Kecker, Hello.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
And welcome to Senior Care Live. I'm Steve Keeker, your
senior care consultant, and I really appreciate you tuning in
today and we have an awesome show on tap. I'm
going to cover a lot of super super important information
today and wanted to start off with discussing Medicaid. And
(00:46):
I've talked about it actually recently, and I just barely
touched on it. I thought, you know what, I need
to go back and go down into a lot more
depth and really just cover that and I think proactively
answer a lot of questions that may exist out in
the market. So let's talk about Medicaid today. First of all,
it is financial assistance for healthcare and your prescription costs.
(01:09):
It is a federal program, so just think you know
the overarching Medicaid program. It's federal money, but and it's
a federal program, but it is administered at the state level.
So there's federal money that pours into each state, and
then each state administers the Medicaid program and there could
(01:30):
be some slight differences. Some of these differences can make
a huge, huge impact on your planning and your decisions
that you may make. I'll explain that a little bit.
Do not confuse or interchange the word Medicaid with medicare.
They are two very different things. Just think of Medicare
(01:53):
and I'm not going to go into anything on Medicare today,
but Medicare is your health insurance. That's it. I mean,
Medicare is your health insurance, and it is health insurance,
and that's it. So and Medicaid is a completely different thing.
And we're going to talk about what Medicaid is and
how you can qualify for Medicaid, what it'll pay for,
(02:15):
et cetera, et cetera. So let's jump into this today,
and I'm talking about Medicaid relative to paying for long
term care. It pays for a lot of other stuff,
but I want to talk about, you know, how you
qualify for Medicaid and how much it'll pay in all
of that relative to needing to move to long term care.
(02:38):
You might refer to that as skilled nursing the health center.
Some people still call it a nursing home. I just
generally call it long term care. It's that highest level
of care. It's the medical model. Okay. So what you
have to do is look at it from a financial perspective.
This is very very simple to determine how you're going
(03:01):
to qualify for this. So you look at your assets
and you have two columns. You have an exempt asset
column and you have a countable asset column. And the
reason that we need to know about this is we're
going to determine the amount of our accountable assets and
they're going to have to be spent down to a
(03:23):
certain number. Then once you hit that number, it triggers
your qualification for Medicaid. So what is exempt? Your house
is exempt for now? Okay, And oh gosh, do I
(03:44):
want to get into all of this. So you're a
lot of people while I'm going to have to sell
the house, we're going to have to sign the house
over to the nursing home before. No, no, no, no
no no. If anyone tells you that, they are very
clearly demonstrating that they have no clue how this stuff works.
They have no idea what they're talking about. You do
not have to sign your house over to anyone. The
(04:04):
nursing home does not want to own your house. Trust me,
that's not the business they're in. So your house is exempt.
You don't have to sell it now. You're probably going
to want to sell it in a little while, but
you don't have to worry about that right now. The car,
one vehicle is exempt. A prepaid funeral plan, a fantastic idea,
(04:29):
by the way, is exempt a small amount of cash value,
and a life insurance policy is exempt, very small amount.
And all the household stuff, all the stuff in your
house exempt. Now that prepaid funeral plan is really really important.
(04:52):
So your money is going to be spent down. And
then once you hit these numbers that I'm going to
share with you here in just a moment, you qualify. Well,
an incredibly smart thing to do, a savvy thing to do,
is to take some of your money and invest it
into a prepaid funeral plan. So and here I go,
(05:13):
I'm getting ahead of myself again. So we have exempt assets.
Your house, I'm a little add today. So we have
your house to your car, prepaid funeral plan, life insurance,
small amount of cash value in a small life insurance plan,
and the stuff in your house. What is countable. What
is countable is almost everything else. Think liquid assets, checking savings,
(05:42):
money market, mutual fund, CDs, four O one, k's, iras,
all the stuff. Think liquid assets that is countable. So
we have our exempt assets, take them off the table,
countable assets, all the liquid assets. Now why is it
important to do that? Well, now we have our countable assets.
(06:06):
Now we know where we are. So let's say we
have a single person and they're countable assets total up
to fifty thousand dollars. I'm just making up a number here, okay,
and then you are going to spend that money down
to very under ten thousand, okay, very little money left.
(06:30):
And then once you hit these triggers, then you'll qualify.
So you're going to go from fifty thousand dollars and
here are the triggers, at least here from where I'm
broadcasting in the Kansas City metro area on the Kansas side.
Once you are down to two thousand dollars, that is
the trigger boom. You're in. You're qualified. On the Missouri
side of the Kansas City metro area, five thousand, nine
(06:54):
hundred and nine dollars and at that point, boom, you're
in qualified for Medicaid. Now, obviously we're we broadcast nationally,
so I've looked at a lot of other states and
all the numbers are very similar. I mean, you you're
almost you're basically broke. Okay, yeah, yeah, you hardly have
(07:15):
any any money left. So it's as simple as that.
Exempt assets, take them off the table, accountable assets, add
them up. Whatever that number is, you're going to spend
it down to that state. Medicaid trigger Kansas is two thousand,
Missouri's nine dollars, and you qualify. It's as simple as that.
(07:35):
It is super straightforward. Now let's talk about that spend
down for a second. What are you going to spend
that money on. Well, you're gonna pay for your care.
So you move into long term care, You're gonna you're
gonna you're gonna pay that monthly bill for your care.
You can if you have a few debts, you can
use some of your spend down money to pay off
(07:56):
your debts. You can even make some home improvements on
that house that is an exempt asset. That's pretty cool.
You can buy a prepaid funeral plan, and I would
encourage you to absolutely do that. Think about this. In Kansas,
you spend down to two thousand dollars and then you
qualify for Medicaid. Now you're literally just about out of money,
(08:19):
and then you pass away. Well, an average funeral, I
think the number used to be ten thousand. It may
be closer to fifteen thousand. Now, let's say it's ten
thousand dollars and you have two thousand that can go
towards that. Your family's going to have to come up
with several thousand dollars just for your final expenses. So
(08:42):
what you can do is use some of that money
again to pay for your care, payoff some debts, et cetera,
et cetera, and then use some of that, invest some
of that into prepaid funeral plan, take your final expenses
off the table. What you're doing is you're taking accountable
asset that has to be spent on care and some
of these other things, and you're converting it to an
(09:05):
exempt asset. Does that make sense? So to not do that,
I think is just crazy. You're really missing an opportunity
to save your family a lot of money. Now I
realize there's cremation, there's some other things that are much
much less expensive. You might be able to get that
done for a couple of thousand, But I'm just saying
it makes sense take some of the money and invest
(09:28):
it in a prepaid funeral plan, and I don't think
you'd ever regret that. So the other thing you could
do is you could buy a new car. Now, I
don't know why you'd want to do that, because you're
living in a nursing home. You're probably not driving around, okay,
But those are some of the things you can do
with that. So again, to qualify for Medicaid, you have
(09:51):
to divide your assets into two different categories. Exempt assets
house car, prepaid fund plan, small amount of cash value
to life insurance policy, and all the stuff in your house.
Then you have your accountable assets, think liquid assets, checking savings,
money market mutual fund, CDs, four oh one ksiras, all
(10:13):
of that. Add that up, whatever that number is, you'll
spend it down to very very little, and then you
are in. You would qualify for Medicaid. So after the break,
I'm going to talk about some of the other important
aspects of Medicaid. You don't want to miss. That first
Senior Care Live Question of the week. Medicaid will fully
(10:35):
pay for the assisted living level of care. Does that
say a true or false? What do you think?
Speaker 1 (10:43):
You're listening to Senior Care Live on the Senior Care
Broadcasting Network. For more information, visit seniorcare Live dot com.
We'll have more with Steve coming up next. A recent
Internet search for nursing homes in Kansas City provided thirty
(11:06):
two million results. It's daunting to think that there are
over three hundred and fifty senior care communities to choose
from in the Kansas City metro and on average, you'll
spend fifty to one hundred hours trying to find.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
A place for your loved one.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
If this sounds overwhelming, that's because it is. I invite
you to reach out to Senior Care Consulting. We've been
serving family since two thousand and two. With our premium service,
we do most of the work for you.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
You'll spend just a.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Few hours of your time finding the best place available,
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To learn more, call Senior Care Consulting at nine three
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(11:57):
dot com.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Welcome back. You're listening to Senior Care Live on the
Senior Care Broadcasting Network. For more information, visit seniorcare Live
dot com. Now back to the Senior Care Live question
of the week. Medicaid will fully pay for the assisted
living level of care? Is that statement true or false?
(12:26):
And the answer is false. The answer is false, and
I think there may be a few exceptions for some
similar levels of care. In general, that is just that's
a false statement. All right, However, I guess that's the
(12:47):
bad news. Good news is they'll pay all day, every
day for long term care, the nursing home level, so
at least there is an option there. And basically that's
because long term care is a medical model. Assisted living
is not a medical model. It's a social model. They'll
pay for your support services and that sort of thing
(13:08):
in some states, not all, but they won't pay for
the room and board the apartment. They're not going to
pay for that, which again I think it's crazy. So
all right, let's get back on track. So we're talking
about medicaid today, how it works. We talked about a
single person. We divided our assets into exempt assets and
countable assets. We totaled up the countable assets, you spend
(13:29):
them down to a very low number, and then you qualify.
But what happens if you are not a single person.
What happens if you are a married couple? And let's
say the husband needs long term care and the wife
does not. Now we just got way more complicated, a
(13:50):
lot more complicated. So let's say that you count up
all of the exempt assets. It's two hundred thousand excuse me,
the non exempt at the accountable assets, right, the accountable assets,
the liquid assets. We have two hundred thousand dollars, and
so in theory, let's say we put half of them.
(14:12):
You do this thing called the division of assets. And
by the way, you need a good elder law attorney
to do this properly. Don't trust anyone else to do this.
No offense to anyone else. But I wouldn't. I wouldn't. No,
I would not do that. I would it's it's it's
the best money you'll ever spend. Okay. Go to NAE
(14:32):
LA dot org, the National Academy of elder law attorneys,
and then you type in your city, your zip code,
and then there will be a list of of of
specialists of elder law attorneys in your area. Make sure
that they practice elder law one hundred percent of the
time and they've been in business for a long time.
Probably can't go wrong there. But that's what I would do.
(14:54):
So you have this division of assets to say, we
have two hundred thousand of accountable assets. Put half on
his side on her side, and then her side is
her side. So you know, back in the day, a
long time ago, couples actually used to get divorced. They
still stayed together, but they got divorced so that they
(15:17):
could split up the assets to protect part of the
assets for the at home spouse what is considered the
community spouse. Well, that's a horrible thing to do. Someone
in Congress said, hey, why can't we just do that
on paper? Why would we make someone go through divorce
just to get that done. We can just do that
on paper. So that's what we have the division of
(15:37):
assets here. So now on his side in this example,
we have one hundred thousand dollars. We're going to spend
that down to again in Kansas two thousand, Missouri nine
and nine dollars. Most of the other states are similar
numbers that you just as hardly anybody it left again.
You can pay for your care at the nursing home.
You can pay off some debts. Now, you can fix
(15:59):
up the house. And remember that house is an exempt
asset for now. So let's say that the wife is
living in the house and the house needs ten thousand
dollars worth of roof repair, maybe replacement, or five thousand
dollars for a new air conditioner or whatever the case
(16:20):
may be. You can spend some of his money on
that exempt asset on the house. It's a smart thing
to do. Again, by a prepaid funeral plan, I would
do that in about two seconds. You can buy a nicer,
newer car. So let's say your wife is at home.
She's driving the cash for clunkers, right you drive the
(16:43):
fourteen year old car is still great, but you want
to upgrade the car to be more dependable. Means a
transportation because she's going to come every day to see you.
You could do that from his side of the ledger,
so to speak. Okay, and if you work with a
(17:04):
with a qualified elder law attorney. They and I'm not
getting into the weeds on this one. I'll have I'll
have some attorneys on here in the near future and
they can explain it better than I can. But they
can take part of his spend down and turn that
into an income stream for the spouse and take you
(17:25):
all the way down real fast. It's legal to do.
You have to know how to do it. You're going
to invest that in a single premium immediate annuity. You can't.
You and I can't just go out and just buy
one off the shelf. These are written with state specific
verbiage if you will in the contract. Per state law,
(17:49):
you need to hire an elder law attorney. What if
you paid an elder law attorney ten thousand dollars to
help you do this to protect eighty thousand dollars in
this example ninety thousand dollars, is it worth it? I
would say, yeah. Anytime you can spend ten to protect
eighty or ninety, probably a pretty good deal. Don't do
(18:11):
it on your own. Don't have someone at the long
term care community try to do this. That's that's not
their their forte their specialty. It just isn't. I'm sorry,
but it isn't, so that's what I would do. So
you have this division of assets and you've been able
to protect at least quite a bit for the at
home community spouse. Now, how does the well steve, I
(18:34):
have this income that comes in every month. Does that
mean that I go over the two thousand or fifty
nine on nine, whatever the number is, and they get
kicked off every month? No, that is your income. That's
a whole separate deal. That's a separate situation. So the
way the income works for the spouse needing the care
going into long term care, you look at their total
(18:54):
monthly income right off the top, you take enough to
pay for their Medicare premium, okay, and that could be
one hundred or two hundred dollars a month or maybe
even more than that, and then you get to keep
a little bit. So in the state of Kansas, you
get is called a personal needs allowed. You get to
keep a whopping sixty two bucks a month. Woo, don't
(19:16):
spend it all in one place, Okay. In the state
of Missouri, you get to keep a whopping fifty bucks
a month for a Snickers bar and a diet coke
once in a while, that's it. Whatever is left over
on your income, whether that's three thousand dollars or three
hundred dollars, whatever is left after you pay your Medicare premiums,
keep up your health insurance, and after you keep a
couple of bucks, whatever is left the ballance of your
(19:37):
income goes to the nursing home. As and I they
call it a patient liability I like to speak in English,
it's a copey that's your cope every month, and then
the Medicaid program pays them the difference. It's that simple,
very very simple. And even the long term care community,
the nursing home, they even have a contribution to this
(20:00):
model because let's say their retail rate is I'm just
making up some numbers. Here's three hundred fifty dollars a day.
But they're willing to accept what Medicaid will pay them,
which is three hundred dollars a day. They'll write off
the other fifty, so the nursing home has a daily discount.
The individual pays what they can pay after they pay
for their their Medicare premiums and keep a couple of bucks.
(20:23):
Medicaid pays the bulk of that. That's how that works.
That's exactly how it works. I would again, I would
reach out to a local elder law attorney Naela dot
org to find a great one in your area. Don't
go away, I'll have much more coming right up.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
You're listening to Senior Care Live on the Senior Care
Broadcasting Network. Have a question, visit seniorcare live dot com.
Stick around. We'll have more with Steve coming up next.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
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Consulting dot com. Welcome back. You're listening to Senior Care
(22:08):
Live on the Senior Care Broadcasting Network. For podcasts of
the program, visit Seniorcare Live dot com or wherever you
get your podcasts. All right, So I'm gonna shift gears
here and talk about the most frequently asked question that
I have been asked. Oh gosh, since about two thousand
(22:30):
and two. How about that. That's a long time ago,
but I'm asked this question all the time. So here's
the question, Steve, When should we consider moving from our
home to a senior care community? When should we do that?
We don't want to move too soon. We want to
(22:51):
stay at home as long as possible. Certainly understand that
we don't want to wait too long. We've heard a
lot of the horror stories that you've shared on the
radio about that and just having to all of a
sudden make this knee jerk reaction and just pick a
place and hope it works out. We don't want to
do that either. We want to get it right. So
the way I answer that, you know, sometimes it's just
(23:14):
painfully obvious. There's no to oh boy, yeah, yeah, we
need to move. And I would say way more often
than not, it is not so obvious at all. It's
kind of it falls in some of the gray areas.
So I I liked say the following thing should trigger
the conversation of considering moving from your home to a
(23:36):
senior care community. So number one, when it is no
longer safe to live at home, so we have a
safety issue, and it's uh, it could be kind of
a minor safety issue. It could be a a red
alert safety issue. Okay, leaving the stovetop burners on. That's
(24:01):
just about I think maybe the most common one I've heard,
and a lot of these are related to having dementia
or just being forgetful, some memory loss, that sort of thing.
So when it is no longer safe to live at home,
you leave your stovetop burners on. Now we have a
fire risk, and I've heard of some near misses, I mean,
(24:21):
just terrible near misses. That's easy to fix too, though,
if it's elect if it's an electric stove or range,
just flip the breaker click and you disable it, or
you can unplug it if it plugs into the wall.
I discovered my electric stove and range and oven literally hardwired.
(24:44):
I'm like, oh lord, that's not good. So but unplugged
the thing, flip the breaker. If it's gas. Usually there's
a shut off valve coming coming in, you know, very
near where the appliance is. U wandering away and can't
find your way back home. Oh boy, this one's really
(25:07):
common as well. I'm just going to go out for
a walk and you go out and walk around the block,
and all of a sudden, it's things are just not
looking quite right and a little confusing, and you're like,
oh boy, I'm a little bit lost now. And again
this is related to having dementia, and God bless them,
(25:28):
you get a little bit confused. You may even go
out for a drive, which is really, I think a
lot more scary and dangerous. You're driving around, first of all,
you probably shouldn't be driving at that point, and you
drive away, and now the streets aren't looking as familiar
as they once did, and you're like, oh where am I?
(25:53):
And you get lost. You may even drive to another state,
and that's why we have all of these silver alerts
popping up all over the place. Now someone walked away
or drove away and they're missing. We need to find them.
Usually it has a happy ending. Unfortunately, sometimes it does not.
(26:14):
That's a big, big safety issue. Number three, experiencing malnutrition
and dehydration because they're not able to cook for themselves,
or maybe they're eating, you know, junk food all the time.
They're not drinking, they're not keeping their hydration up, especially
(26:37):
here in the summer. Super important. Unsanitary living conditions due
to neglect or just the inability to keep everything up.
Injured at home, frequent falls, frequent hospitalizations. It's pretty obvious
this one flies under the radar, but it's super important,
a major safety issue. Not taking your medications properly, maybe
(26:59):
not taking them on time, maybe not taking them at all. Okay,
you're skipping a dose or skipping a day. That's a
huge issue. And then, of course the terrible ones which
I just can't stand, elder financial abuse or maybe even
physical abuse, or emotional or mental abuse. When it's no
longer safe to live at home, that absolutely has to
(27:23):
trigger the conversation of considering moving from home to a
senior care community. Number two. I would call this a
really close to maybe even A one A when the
caregiver's health and well being are in decline. We're talking
about your mental health, your emotional health, your spiritual health,
(27:45):
and of course your physical health. So when you are
a caregiver and you're just pouring yourself into this person
that you love so much, your spouse, your parent, whoever
this person is, and I see this happen a lot
and elderly spouse caring for an elderly spouse, I think
(28:06):
that's when this is most prevalent. What you do, are
you trying to do your best, and we have the
heroic caregiver happening here. You place your own needs second.
Your own needs are placed on the back burner, and
you skip your own doctor's appointment and dental appointments. You
(28:30):
skip social events like the book club with the ladies,
the coffee and donuts with the guys, telling fishing stories
in the donut shop on Friday morning. You stop going
to church. You just kind of back out of everything,
and you become isolated. And then the stress starts just
(28:53):
piling on and piling on, and you never get a break.
You never get a break from it, and then you're
just being crushed by the stress. I can't tell you
how many times I've seen or heard about the caregiver
passing away from the stress of it all before the
(29:17):
person they're caring for. And by allowing that to happen,
you have completely defeated the purpose. Now you're not here
to care for your loved one, this person that you
sacrificed everything for. You put all of your own needs
on the back burner. Now you're not here to make
sure they're getting good care and to watch over them
and to make sure that they're getting everything that they
(29:39):
need and deserve. Stress is a very very powerful force.
You can't let that happen. Oh no, I've got it.
I've got it. But if you can clearly see with
your own eyes they don't have it, you may have
to have an intervention. Don't let this person suffer with
(30:02):
their health and maybe possibly even pass away before the
person they're caring for. It's unnecessary and it is avoidable.
You may have to step in on that one, Okay.
Number three, When to consider moving from your home to
senior care community when the cost of in home care
becomes maybe just unaffordable. I'm a huge fan of home care,
(30:27):
home care services, huge fan, but and you could bring
in home care support for you know, four to six
hours a day for a couple of couple of days
a week, two three days, the caregiver gets a full break.
They get to go out and have lunch with their friends,
(30:48):
get their hair cut, go to the doctor's office, just
get a just get a break, take a deep breath
and recharge and come back in. It's unbelievably helpful for
the caregiver and for the person receiving the care. They
get to visit with a different person. And that's that's
good too. This is a positive thing. But when the
(31:08):
need rises to that level of twenty four hours, okay,
I mean we're talking some big time expenses. We're talking
thirty five to forty dollars an hour. Do the math
on that. That's too expensive for a lot of folks.
If you had to pay for that for very long,
that should trigger the conversation of considering moving maybe to
(31:28):
assisted living. And it's instead of paying fifteen thousand, twenty
five thousand, thirty thousand dollars a month, maybe you could
spend seven thousand dollars a month to get twenty four
hour care in the assisted living level. Okay, no, it's
not the same, it's not one on one, but it's
a cost effective alternative. At some point, at some point,
(31:49):
the math just doesn't add up. And the last but
not least, when the care you provide is just not enough,
why not consider changing your role from being the caregiver
that hands on care provider to the care manager, meaning
let's go out, let's find a great care provider, and
then you can stop being the caregiver and return to
(32:12):
your traditional role as the loving spouse, the loving son
or daughter, in my case, the loving grandson. Okay, if
you have any questions about any of this, if you
need help exploring your options at the facility level, give
us a call at Senior Care Consulting. We offer a
free consultation nine one three five twenty eight hundred or
(32:34):
visit online at Seniorcare Consulting dot com. Don't go away,
I have so much more for you right around the corner.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
You're listening to Senior Care Live on the Senior Care
Broadcasting Network. To contact Steve or a guest of his show,
this is Seniorcare Live dot com.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
We'll have more coming up. So you've been living independently
at home, but now it's not working out, it's time
to begin searching for a senior care community. But with
hundreds of independent living, assisted living, long term care, and
(33:14):
memory care options, how are you supposed to determine the
best place for you? Hello, I'm Steve Keeker, and this
is exactly why I created my firm, Senior Care Consulting.
I help my own grandparents through this difficult process, so
I know how overwhelming this can be. Our business model
ensures credibility and objectivity. We work directly for you and
(33:36):
we never receive reimbursement from any provider. We've helped hundreds
of families since two thousand and two, and we can
help you and your family as well. Call today for
a free consultation at nine one three nine four five
twenty eight hundred. Nine one three nine four five twenty
eight hundred, a placement service with integrity at Seniorcare Consulting
(33:59):
dot com. Welcome back. You're listening to Senior Care Live
on the Senior Care Broadcasting Network. Have a question, visit
seniorcare Live dot com. All right, so we have considered
moving from our home to senior care community. You listen
(34:21):
to your old pal Steve, and you're going to be proactive,
not reactive, isn't that right?
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Okay, so seriously, oh my gosh, don't put it off
until it becomes a crisis. You are going to be
so sorry is that you didn't be a little more
proactive on that. Trust me on that, folks, Just trust
me on that. Okay. So now you've made the decision
to move, what to determine before ever even thinking about
(34:50):
conducting your search. Don't do the old shotgun approach. Well
there's this place over here, and so and so mentioned
this one, and there's a new one that just popped
up on the way work, and just go out, just
start looking at places that you are wasting your time.
You need to know what you're looking for and then
have a targeted, focused list and then go out and
see the places that will actually meet your needs so
(35:12):
you're not wasting time. Let me put it in perspective,
the average person spends or maybe family could be one
person fifty to one hundred hours running around looking at
all these places, trying to do their homework. They're trying
to do their best to get it right. Fifty to
one hundred hours. That's why senior care consulting clients spend
(35:36):
about four hours and they are all about it. They
love it. It's a major, major time saver because we
do most of the work for you. If you're doing
this on your own. What to determine before beginning your search.
You need to know what level of care you will need. Well,
what he means to level of care? Level of care.
(35:56):
Here's how I look at it. It's related to your licensure,
the licensure of the provider. So if you provide hands
on care, you must be licensed in the state of
wherever you're providing that care, and then the licensure dictates
what you must provide in all of the parameters and
(36:17):
limitations and all the staffing, all the stuff. Okay, so
levels of care long term care, that's the medical model.
That's the highest level. That's the nursing, home health center,
skilled nursing, wherever you want to call it. Long term
care is a level of care, it's the highest one.
Then you have assisted living that occupies a wide lane
that can help you minimally or fully with your bathing, dressing, grooming, toileting.
(36:42):
They offer some incontinent support to a point. They manage
your medications, They provide hydration snacks, all of that, there's
a full slate of activities for meaningful social engagement. Doctors
make house calls, actually come into the community, essentially making
a house call. There's transportation if you want to use
(37:03):
an outside doctor or go see a specialist. There's a
lot of support there. It's just not medical in nature
per se. Do you need the residential care level of care?
Do you need the home plus level of care? Intermediate
care facility i CEF Do you need that? You have
to determine. You have to figure out what you need
and then where you fit in that line, that list
(37:24):
of levels of care, long term care, assisted living, residential care,
home plus, and intermediate care facility I SEEF. All right,
number two, what type of care do you need? So
here's how I break it out. General care, just everyday
general care. Do you need memory care that's a special
(37:47):
type of care for someone with cognitive impairment. There's a
lot that goes into that. You may not need it now,
you may need it later, you may need it now. Okay,
you have to determine all these things. Do you need
skilled nursing and rehab? Do you need mental health care
or hospice care or respite care? So We need to
know our level of care, and then the type of care,
(38:09):
and then the big elephant in the room, how are
we going to pay for this stuff? It's expensive, So
you have your payment methods, private pay that means you're
writing a check, You're using your own resources to pay
for your care. And then you have Medicare. You have
Medicaid long term care insurance, which I think the number
(38:29):
is about seven percent of those who will require long
term care actually has a long term care insurance policy.
We need to get that number way up. Are you
a veteran or the spouse the surviving spouse of a
deceased veteran? What about the Vaaid and attendance benefit? You
(38:50):
need to figure all of that out. Location parameters. We
all want to be as close as possible so it's
convenient to go visit our loved one. The better question
is how how far are you willing to drive to
receive the best care. That's the much better question than
any personal preferences and needs. So that's something very very specific.
(39:13):
You know, most of most of my clients don't have
something that specific. Once in a while we do, though,
So I had a gentleman recently, Steve mothers played piano.
She's played that piano for seventy years, a long time.
It's look, it's just part of her DNA, it's hardwired
into her. At this point, she cannot do without her piano.
(39:35):
Can you find a place that will allow us to
take her small piano and put it in her apartment?
She needed the assisted living level at that point. So
I had to make sure that the top options that
we're going to tour and gather information on for them
to consider would accept her piano. Most places did, some
(39:56):
places did not. Okay, I had another person saying, you know,
my mother, if it has a beak on it, forget it.
Do not ever serve her foul right, she won't complain,
she won't eat a turkey sandwich or scrambled egg or whatever,
and no one would ever know that. So you have
(40:18):
to speak up. So your level of care, your type
of care, your payment methods, location, personal preferences and needs.
Once you have that determined, then and then only should
you begin your search and go out and then find
the top places that check all of the boxes. Otherwise
(40:39):
I'm just telling you you are wasting your time, and
that contributes to that fifty two one hundred hours. If
it sounds overwhelming, it is. If it sounds really complex,
like Steve, you just turn that into a great big
complex equation. And I was just going to go look
at some places. Well, it's a complex equation because if
(41:00):
you want to do it right that it is a
complex equation. Okay, if you're like, all right, I'm out,
I need some help with that. If you want to
reach out to my firm, Senior Care Consulting, we help
families and individuals every single day through the search and
selection process. The first thing, guess what we do. The
first thing, we conduct a proprietary geriatric care assessment. We
(41:23):
ask we have a six page worksheet. We ask all
of the questions necessary to determine guess what the level
of care you'll need, the type of care you need,
the payment methods we talk. We go through all the financials,
location parameters, personal preferences and needs. And that's our starting point.
And then we research the entire marketplace, not just a
(41:44):
short list of our buddies. Okay, we research the entire
marketplace and determine our top providers that check all the
boxes that meet our exact needs. Then we'll go out
with you together, and we will. We'll go out and
we'll take a tour of each place. I am a
former nursing home and assistant living administrator. I think I
(42:06):
look at this differently. I ask a lot of questions
that most of my clients would never know to ask,
gather critical information. When we're done, it only takes about
three or four hours and we're finished, and then I
produce a report to help you make an informed decision.
If that's resonating with you, if you're like, wait a minute,
I got my hand up. I need help. Nine one three,
nine four five twenty eight hundred or visit online at
(42:29):
Seniorcare Consulting dot com. We'll offer a free consultation. Let's
talk about that. We can definitely help, all right. I'm
Steve Keeker, and I wish you grace and peace. May
God bless you and your family on this day and
always join me next week right here on Senior Care Line.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
Does your business serve the elderly and their caregivers in
our area? There are hundreds of thousands of people either
receiving or providing senior care, and they need to know
about you. A unique and successful radio program called Senior
Care Live is the perfect opportunity to let your target
audience know about your amazing products and services. Senior Care
(43:12):
Live is currently adding a limited number of partner sponsors,
and if you're aligned with their mission, they want to
talk to you. They're interested in partnering with hospital organizations,
physician groups, home care providers, as state planning and older
law practices, financial advisors, insurance companies, real estate brokers, home
health agencies, and other providers serving the elderly and their caregivers.
(43:36):
Senior Care Live has a limited number of partner sponsor opportunities,
so call now at nine one three nine four five
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dot com.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
Quid pro quo a Latin phrase that means an exchange
of goods or services where one transfer is contingent upon
the other. Here's one example. I'll recommend your senior care
community if you'll pay me a huge kickback from my referral.
The free referral services have a vested interest in you
choosing one of their business partners. That's how they make
(44:14):
their money. Does this paid recommendation sound, objective or credible,
of course not. I'm Steve Keeker with Senior Care Consulting.
I'm so proud to say we have never received a
single penny from any provider ever. We offer a placement
service with integrity for help finding the right senior care community,
without conflict of interest and without the quid pro quo
(44:38):
called nine one three, nine four five twenty eight hundred
nine one three nine four five twenty eight hundred Replacement
service with integrity at Seniorcare Consulting dot com
Are you caring for an aging loved one? Are you
a senior searching for answers? Welcome to Senior Care Live,
a program dedicated to you, providing information, education and resources
for seniors and their caregivers. And now America's Senior care consultant,
Steve Kecker, Hello.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
And welcome to Senior Care Live. I'm Steve Keeker, your
senior care consultant, and I really appreciate you tuning in
today and we have an awesome show on tap. I'm
going to cover a lot of super super important information
today and wanted to start off with discussing Medicaid. And
(00:46):
I've talked about it actually recently, and I just barely
touched on it. I thought, you know what, I need
to go back and go down into a lot more
depth and really just cover that and I think proactively
answer a lot of questions that may exist out in
the market. So let's talk about Medicaid today. First of all,
it is financial assistance for healthcare and your prescription costs.
(01:09):
It is a federal program, so just think you know
the overarching Medicaid program. It's federal money, but and it's
a federal program, but it is administered at the state level.
So there's federal money that pours into each state, and
then each state administers the Medicaid program and there could
(01:30):
be some slight differences. Some of these differences can make
a huge, huge impact on your planning and your decisions
that you may make. I'll explain that a little bit.
Do not confuse or interchange the word Medicaid with medicare.
They are two very different things. Just think of Medicare
(01:53):
and I'm not going to go into anything on Medicare today,
but Medicare is your health insurance. That's it. I mean,
Medicare is your health insurance, and it is health insurance,
and that's it. So and Medicaid is a completely different thing.
And we're going to talk about what Medicaid is and
how you can qualify for Medicaid, what it'll pay for,
(02:15):
et cetera, et cetera. So let's jump into this today,
and I'm talking about Medicaid relative to paying for long
term care. It pays for a lot of other stuff,
but I want to talk about, you know, how you
qualify for Medicaid and how much it'll pay in all
of that relative to needing to move to long term care.
(02:38):
You might refer to that as skilled nursing the health center.
Some people still call it a nursing home. I just
generally call it long term care. It's that highest level
of care. It's the medical model. Okay. So what you
have to do is look at it from a financial perspective.
This is very very simple to determine how you're going
(03:01):
to qualify for this. So you look at your assets
and you have two columns. You have an exempt asset
column and you have a countable asset column. And the
reason that we need to know about this is we're
going to determine the amount of our accountable assets and
they're going to have to be spent down to a
(03:23):
certain number. Then once you hit that number, it triggers
your qualification for Medicaid. So what is exempt? Your house
is exempt for now? Okay, And oh gosh, do I
(03:44):
want to get into all of this. So you're a
lot of people while I'm going to have to sell
the house, we're going to have to sign the house
over to the nursing home before. No, no, no, no
no no. If anyone tells you that, they are very
clearly demonstrating that they have no clue how this stuff works.
They have no idea what they're talking about. You do
not have to sign your house over to anyone. The
(04:04):
nursing home does not want to own your house. Trust me,
that's not the business they're in. So your house is exempt.
You don't have to sell it now. You're probably going
to want to sell it in a little while, but
you don't have to worry about that right now. The car,
one vehicle is exempt. A prepaid funeral plan, a fantastic idea,
(04:29):
by the way, is exempt a small amount of cash value,
and a life insurance policy is exempt, very small amount.
And all the household stuff, all the stuff in your
house exempt. Now that prepaid funeral plan is really really important.
(04:52):
So your money is going to be spent down. And
then once you hit these numbers that I'm going to
share with you here in just a moment, you qualify. Well,
an incredibly smart thing to do, a savvy thing to do,
is to take some of your money and invest it
into a prepaid funeral plan. So and here I go,
(05:13):
I'm getting ahead of myself again. So we have exempt assets.
Your house, I'm a little add today. So we have
your house to your car, prepaid funeral plan, life insurance,
small amount of cash value in a small life insurance plan,
and the stuff in your house. What is countable. What
is countable is almost everything else. Think liquid assets, checking savings,
(05:42):
money market, mutual fund, CDs, four O one, k's, iras,
all the stuff. Think liquid assets that is countable. So
we have our exempt assets, take them off the table,
countable assets, all the liquid assets. Now why is it
important to do that? Well, now we have our countable assets.
(06:06):
Now we know where we are. So let's say we
have a single person and they're countable assets total up
to fifty thousand dollars. I'm just making up a number here, okay,
and then you are going to spend that money down
to very under ten thousand, okay, very little money left.
(06:30):
And then once you hit these triggers, then you'll qualify.
So you're going to go from fifty thousand dollars and
here are the triggers, at least here from where I'm
broadcasting in the Kansas City metro area on the Kansas side.
Once you are down to two thousand dollars, that is
the trigger boom. You're in. You're qualified. On the Missouri
side of the Kansas City metro area, five thousand, nine
(06:54):
hundred and nine dollars and at that point, boom, you're
in qualified for Medicaid. Now, obviously we're we broadcast nationally,
so I've looked at a lot of other states and
all the numbers are very similar. I mean, you you're
almost you're basically broke. Okay, yeah, yeah, you hardly have
(07:15):
any any money left. So it's as simple as that.
Exempt assets, take them off the table, accountable assets, add
them up. Whatever that number is, you're going to spend
it down to that state. Medicaid trigger Kansas is two thousand,
Missouri's nine dollars, and you qualify. It's as simple as that.
(07:35):
It is super straightforward. Now let's talk about that spend
down for a second. What are you going to spend
that money on. Well, you're gonna pay for your care.
So you move into long term care, You're gonna you're
gonna you're gonna pay that monthly bill for your care.
You can if you have a few debts, you can
use some of your spend down money to pay off
(07:56):
your debts. You can even make some home improvements on
that house that is an exempt asset. That's pretty cool.
You can buy a prepaid funeral plan, and I would
encourage you to absolutely do that. Think about this. In Kansas,
you spend down to two thousand dollars and then you
qualify for Medicaid. Now you're literally just about out of money,
(08:19):
and then you pass away. Well, an average funeral, I
think the number used to be ten thousand. It may
be closer to fifteen thousand. Now, let's say it's ten
thousand dollars and you have two thousand that can go
towards that. Your family's going to have to come up
with several thousand dollars just for your final expenses. So
(08:42):
what you can do is use some of that money
again to pay for your care, payoff some debts, et cetera,
et cetera, and then use some of that, invest some
of that into prepaid funeral plan, take your final expenses
off the table. What you're doing is you're taking accountable
asset that has to be spent on care and some
of these other things, and you're converting it to an
(09:05):
exempt asset. Does that make sense? So to not do that,
I think is just crazy. You're really missing an opportunity
to save your family a lot of money. Now I
realize there's cremation, there's some other things that are much
much less expensive. You might be able to get that
done for a couple of thousand, But I'm just saying
it makes sense take some of the money and invest
(09:28):
it in a prepaid funeral plan, and I don't think
you'd ever regret that. So the other thing you could
do is you could buy a new car. Now, I
don't know why you'd want to do that, because you're
living in a nursing home. You're probably not driving around, okay,
But those are some of the things you can do
with that. So again, to qualify for Medicaid, you have
(09:51):
to divide your assets into two different categories. Exempt assets
house car, prepaid fund plan, small amount of cash value
to life insurance policy, and all the stuff in your house.
Then you have your accountable assets, think liquid assets, checking savings,
money market mutual fund, CDs, four oh one ksiras, all
(10:13):
of that. Add that up, whatever that number is, you'll
spend it down to very very little, and then you
are in. You would qualify for Medicaid. So after the break,
I'm going to talk about some of the other important
aspects of Medicaid. You don't want to miss. That first
Senior Care Live Question of the week. Medicaid will fully
(10:35):
pay for the assisted living level of care. Does that
say a true or false? What do you think?
Speaker 1 (10:43):
You're listening to Senior Care Live on the Senior Care
Broadcasting Network. For more information, visit seniorcare Live dot com.
We'll have more with Steve coming up next. A recent
Internet search for nursing homes in Kansas City provided thirty
(11:06):
two million results. It's daunting to think that there are
over three hundred and fifty senior care communities to choose
from in the Kansas City metro and on average, you'll
spend fifty to one hundred hours trying to find.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
A place for your loved one.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
If this sounds overwhelming, that's because it is. I invite
you to reach out to Senior Care Consulting. We've been
serving family since two thousand and two. With our premium service,
we do most of the work for you.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
You'll spend just a.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Few hours of your time finding the best place available,
and you can trust us to be objective because we
don't receive reimbursement from any provider. We work for you.
To learn more, call Senior Care Consulting at nine three
nine four five twenty eight hundred nine nine four five
twenty eight hundred a placement service with integrity at Seniorcareconsulting
(11:57):
dot com.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Welcome back. You're listening to Senior Care Live on the
Senior Care Broadcasting Network. For more information, visit seniorcare Live
dot com. Now back to the Senior Care Live question
of the week. Medicaid will fully pay for the assisted
living level of care? Is that statement true or false?
(12:26):
And the answer is false. The answer is false, and
I think there may be a few exceptions for some
similar levels of care. In general, that is just that's
a false statement. All right, However, I guess that's the
(12:47):
bad news. Good news is they'll pay all day, every
day for long term care, the nursing home level, so
at least there is an option there. And basically that's
because long term care is a medical model. Assisted living
is not a medical model. It's a social model. They'll
pay for your support services and that sort of thing
(13:08):
in some states, not all, but they won't pay for
the room and board the apartment. They're not going to
pay for that, which again I think it's crazy. So
all right, let's get back on track. So we're talking
about medicaid today, how it works. We talked about a
single person. We divided our assets into exempt assets and
countable assets. We totaled up the countable assets, you spend
(13:29):
them down to a very low number, and then you qualify.
But what happens if you are not a single person.
What happens if you are a married couple? And let's
say the husband needs long term care and the wife
does not. Now we just got way more complicated, a
(13:50):
lot more complicated. So let's say that you count up
all of the exempt assets. It's two hundred thousand excuse me,
the non exempt at the accountable assets, right, the accountable assets,
the liquid assets. We have two hundred thousand dollars, and
so in theory, let's say we put half of them.
(14:12):
You do this thing called the division of assets. And
by the way, you need a good elder law attorney
to do this properly. Don't trust anyone else to do this.
No offense to anyone else. But I wouldn't. I wouldn't. No,
I would not do that. I would it's it's it's
the best money you'll ever spend. Okay. Go to NAE
(14:32):
LA dot org, the National Academy of elder law attorneys,
and then you type in your city, your zip code,
and then there will be a list of of of
specialists of elder law attorneys in your area. Make sure
that they practice elder law one hundred percent of the
time and they've been in business for a long time.
Probably can't go wrong there. But that's what I would do.
(14:54):
So you have this division of assets to say, we
have two hundred thousand of accountable assets. Put half on
his side on her side, and then her side is
her side. So you know, back in the day, a
long time ago, couples actually used to get divorced. They
still stayed together, but they got divorced so that they
(15:17):
could split up the assets to protect part of the
assets for the at home spouse what is considered the
community spouse. Well, that's a horrible thing to do. Someone
in Congress said, hey, why can't we just do that
on paper? Why would we make someone go through divorce
just to get that done. We can just do that
on paper. So that's what we have the division of
(15:37):
assets here. So now on his side in this example,
we have one hundred thousand dollars. We're going to spend
that down to again in Kansas two thousand, Missouri nine
and nine dollars. Most of the other states are similar
numbers that you just as hardly anybody it left again.
You can pay for your care at the nursing home.
You can pay off some debts. Now, you can fix
(15:59):
up the house. And remember that house is an exempt
asset for now. So let's say that the wife is
living in the house and the house needs ten thousand
dollars worth of roof repair, maybe replacement, or five thousand
dollars for a new air conditioner or whatever the case
(16:20):
may be. You can spend some of his money on
that exempt asset on the house. It's a smart thing
to do. Again, by a prepaid funeral plan, I would
do that in about two seconds. You can buy a nicer,
newer car. So let's say your wife is at home.
She's driving the cash for clunkers, right you drive the
(16:43):
fourteen year old car is still great, but you want
to upgrade the car to be more dependable. Means a
transportation because she's going to come every day to see you.
You could do that from his side of the ledger,
so to speak. Okay, and if you work with a
(17:04):
with a qualified elder law attorney. They and I'm not
getting into the weeds on this one. I'll have I'll
have some attorneys on here in the near future and
they can explain it better than I can. But they
can take part of his spend down and turn that
into an income stream for the spouse and take you
(17:25):
all the way down real fast. It's legal to do.
You have to know how to do it. You're going
to invest that in a single premium immediate annuity. You can't.
You and I can't just go out and just buy
one off the shelf. These are written with state specific
verbiage if you will in the contract. Per state law,
(17:49):
you need to hire an elder law attorney. What if
you paid an elder law attorney ten thousand dollars to
help you do this to protect eighty thousand dollars in
this example ninety thousand dollars, is it worth it? I
would say, yeah. Anytime you can spend ten to protect
eighty or ninety, probably a pretty good deal. Don't do
(18:11):
it on your own. Don't have someone at the long
term care community try to do this. That's that's not
their their forte their specialty. It just isn't. I'm sorry,
but it isn't, so that's what I would do. So
you have this division of assets and you've been able
to protect at least quite a bit for the at
home community spouse. Now, how does the well steve, I
(18:34):
have this income that comes in every month. Does that
mean that I go over the two thousand or fifty
nine on nine, whatever the number is, and they get
kicked off every month? No, that is your income. That's
a whole separate deal. That's a separate situation. So the
way the income works for the spouse needing the care
going into long term care, you look at their total
(18:54):
monthly income right off the top, you take enough to
pay for their Medicare premium, okay, and that could be
one hundred or two hundred dollars a month or maybe
even more than that, and then you get to keep
a little bit. So in the state of Kansas, you
get is called a personal needs allowed. You get to
keep a whopping sixty two bucks a month. Woo, don't
(19:16):
spend it all in one place, Okay. In the state
of Missouri, you get to keep a whopping fifty bucks
a month for a Snickers bar and a diet coke
once in a while, that's it. Whatever is left over
on your income, whether that's three thousand dollars or three
hundred dollars, whatever is left after you pay your Medicare premiums,
keep up your health insurance, and after you keep a
couple of bucks, whatever is left the ballance of your
(19:37):
income goes to the nursing home. As and I they
call it a patient liability I like to speak in English,
it's a copey that's your cope every month, and then
the Medicaid program pays them the difference. It's that simple,
very very simple. And even the long term care community,
the nursing home, they even have a contribution to this
(20:00):
model because let's say their retail rate is I'm just
making up some numbers. Here's three hundred fifty dollars a day.
But they're willing to accept what Medicaid will pay them,
which is three hundred dollars a day. They'll write off
the other fifty, so the nursing home has a daily discount.
The individual pays what they can pay after they pay
for their their Medicare premiums and keep a couple of bucks.
(20:23):
Medicaid pays the bulk of that. That's how that works.
That's exactly how it works. I would again, I would
reach out to a local elder law attorney Naela dot
org to find a great one in your area. Don't
go away, I'll have much more coming right up.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
You're listening to Senior Care Live on the Senior Care
Broadcasting Network. Have a question, visit seniorcare live dot com.
Stick around. We'll have more with Steve coming up next.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Hello, this is Steve Keeker, President of Senior Care Consulting.
I'm so excited to announce that we are expanding nationwide
by awarding Senior care Consulting franchises. We help our clients
find the right senior care community, including assistant living, memory care,
long term care, and continuing care retirement communities. We are
(21:22):
not another run of the mill, free referral service. We're
very different. We offer replacement service with integrity. Owning a
senior care consulting franchise offers many benefits. Our market is
not affected by the economy. Operate from your home office
and enjoy work life balance. Pour your passion into a
business you can be proud of. For more information about
(21:45):
owning a senior care consulting franchise, call eight three three
seven two two three seven two six eight three three
seven two two three seven two six or visit Seniorcare
Consulting dot com. Welcome back. You're listening to Senior Care
(22:08):
Live on the Senior Care Broadcasting Network. For podcasts of
the program, visit Seniorcare Live dot com or wherever you
get your podcasts. All right, So I'm gonna shift gears
here and talk about the most frequently asked question that
I have been asked. Oh gosh, since about two thousand
(22:30):
and two. How about that. That's a long time ago,
but I'm asked this question all the time. So here's
the question, Steve, When should we consider moving from our
home to a senior care community? When should we do that?
We don't want to move too soon. We want to
(22:51):
stay at home as long as possible. Certainly understand that
we don't want to wait too long. We've heard a
lot of the horror stories that you've shared on the
radio about that and just having to all of a
sudden make this knee jerk reaction and just pick a
place and hope it works out. We don't want to
do that either. We want to get it right. So
the way I answer that, you know, sometimes it's just
(23:14):
painfully obvious. There's no to oh boy, yeah, yeah, we
need to move. And I would say way more often
than not, it is not so obvious at all. It's
kind of it falls in some of the gray areas.
So I I liked say the following thing should trigger
the conversation of considering moving from your home to a
(23:36):
senior care community. So number one, when it is no
longer safe to live at home, so we have a
safety issue, and it's uh, it could be kind of
a minor safety issue. It could be a a red
alert safety issue. Okay, leaving the stovetop burners on. That's
(24:01):
just about I think maybe the most common one I've heard,
and a lot of these are related to having dementia
or just being forgetful, some memory loss, that sort of thing.
So when it is no longer safe to live at home,
you leave your stovetop burners on. Now we have a
fire risk, and I've heard of some near misses, I mean,
(24:21):
just terrible near misses. That's easy to fix too, though,
if it's elect if it's an electric stove or range,
just flip the breaker click and you disable it, or
you can unplug it if it plugs into the wall.
I discovered my electric stove and range and oven literally hardwired.
(24:44):
I'm like, oh lord, that's not good. So but unplugged
the thing, flip the breaker. If it's gas. Usually there's
a shut off valve coming coming in, you know, very
near where the appliance is. U wandering away and can't
find your way back home. Oh boy, this one's really
(25:07):
common as well. I'm just going to go out for
a walk and you go out and walk around the block,
and all of a sudden, it's things are just not
looking quite right and a little confusing, and you're like,
oh boy, I'm a little bit lost now. And again
this is related to having dementia, and God bless them,
(25:28):
you get a little bit confused. You may even go
out for a drive, which is really, I think a
lot more scary and dangerous. You're driving around, first of all,
you probably shouldn't be driving at that point, and you
drive away, and now the streets aren't looking as familiar
as they once did, and you're like, oh where am I?
(25:53):
And you get lost. You may even drive to another state,
and that's why we have all of these silver alerts
popping up all over the place. Now someone walked away
or drove away and they're missing. We need to find them.
Usually it has a happy ending. Unfortunately, sometimes it does not.
(26:14):
That's a big, big safety issue. Number three, experiencing malnutrition
and dehydration because they're not able to cook for themselves,
or maybe they're eating, you know, junk food all the time.
They're not drinking, they're not keeping their hydration up, especially
(26:37):
here in the summer. Super important. Unsanitary living conditions due
to neglect or just the inability to keep everything up.
Injured at home, frequent falls, frequent hospitalizations. It's pretty obvious
this one flies under the radar, but it's super important,
a major safety issue. Not taking your medications properly, maybe
(26:59):
not taking them on time, maybe not taking them at all. Okay,
you're skipping a dose or skipping a day. That's a
huge issue. And then, of course the terrible ones which
I just can't stand, elder financial abuse or maybe even
physical abuse, or emotional or mental abuse. When it's no
longer safe to live at home, that absolutely has to
(27:23):
trigger the conversation of considering moving from home to a
senior care community. Number two. I would call this a
really close to maybe even A one A when the
caregiver's health and well being are in decline. We're talking
about your mental health, your emotional health, your spiritual health,
(27:45):
and of course your physical health. So when you are
a caregiver and you're just pouring yourself into this person
that you love so much, your spouse, your parent, whoever
this person is, and I see this happen a lot
and elderly spouse caring for an elderly spouse, I think
(28:06):
that's when this is most prevalent. What you do, are
you trying to do your best, and we have the
heroic caregiver happening here. You place your own needs second.
Your own needs are placed on the back burner, and
you skip your own doctor's appointment and dental appointments. You
(28:30):
skip social events like the book club with the ladies,
the coffee and donuts with the guys, telling fishing stories
in the donut shop on Friday morning. You stop going
to church. You just kind of back out of everything,
and you become isolated. And then the stress starts just
(28:53):
piling on and piling on, and you never get a break.
You never get a break from it, and then you're
just being crushed by the stress. I can't tell you
how many times I've seen or heard about the caregiver
passing away from the stress of it all before the
(29:17):
person they're caring for. And by allowing that to happen,
you have completely defeated the purpose. Now you're not here
to care for your loved one, this person that you
sacrificed everything for. You put all of your own needs
on the back burner. Now you're not here to make
sure they're getting good care and to watch over them
and to make sure that they're getting everything that they
(29:39):
need and deserve. Stress is a very very powerful force.
You can't let that happen. Oh no, I've got it.
I've got it. But if you can clearly see with
your own eyes they don't have it, you may have
to have an intervention. Don't let this person suffer with
(30:02):
their health and maybe possibly even pass away before the
person they're caring for. It's unnecessary and it is avoidable.
You may have to step in on that one, Okay.
Number three, When to consider moving from your home to
senior care community when the cost of in home care
becomes maybe just unaffordable. I'm a huge fan of home care,
(30:27):
home care services, huge fan, but and you could bring
in home care support for you know, four to six
hours a day for a couple of couple of days
a week, two three days, the caregiver gets a full break.
They get to go out and have lunch with their friends,
(30:48):
get their hair cut, go to the doctor's office, just
get a just get a break, take a deep breath
and recharge and come back in. It's unbelievably helpful for
the caregiver and for the person receiving the care. They
get to visit with a different person. And that's that's
good too. This is a positive thing. But when the
(31:08):
need rises to that level of twenty four hours, okay,
I mean we're talking some big time expenses. We're talking
thirty five to forty dollars an hour. Do the math
on that. That's too expensive for a lot of folks.
If you had to pay for that for very long,
that should trigger the conversation of considering moving maybe to
(31:28):
assisted living. And it's instead of paying fifteen thousand, twenty
five thousand, thirty thousand dollars a month, maybe you could
spend seven thousand dollars a month to get twenty four
hour care in the assisted living level. Okay, no, it's
not the same, it's not one on one, but it's
a cost effective alternative. At some point, at some point,
(31:49):
the math just doesn't add up. And the last but
not least, when the care you provide is just not enough,
why not consider changing your role from being the caregiver
that hands on care provider to the care manager, meaning
let's go out, let's find a great care provider, and
then you can stop being the caregiver and return to
(32:12):
your traditional role as the loving spouse, the loving son
or daughter, in my case, the loving grandson. Okay, if
you have any questions about any of this, if you
need help exploring your options at the facility level, give
us a call at Senior Care Consulting. We offer a
free consultation nine one three five twenty eight hundred or
(32:34):
visit online at Seniorcare Consulting dot com. Don't go away,
I have so much more for you right around the corner.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
You're listening to Senior Care Live on the Senior Care
Broadcasting Network. To contact Steve or a guest of his show,
this is Seniorcare Live dot com.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
We'll have more coming up. So you've been living independently
at home, but now it's not working out, it's time
to begin searching for a senior care community. But with
hundreds of independent living, assisted living, long term care, and
(33:14):
memory care options, how are you supposed to determine the
best place for you? Hello, I'm Steve Keeker, and this
is exactly why I created my firm, Senior Care Consulting.
I help my own grandparents through this difficult process, so
I know how overwhelming this can be. Our business model
ensures credibility and objectivity. We work directly for you and
(33:36):
we never receive reimbursement from any provider. We've helped hundreds
of families since two thousand and two, and we can
help you and your family as well. Call today for
a free consultation at nine one three nine four five
twenty eight hundred. Nine one three nine four five twenty
eight hundred, a placement service with integrity at Seniorcare Consulting
(33:59):
dot com. Welcome back. You're listening to Senior Care Live
on the Senior Care Broadcasting Network. Have a question, visit
seniorcare Live dot com. All right, so we have considered
moving from our home to senior care community. You listen
(34:21):
to your old pal Steve, and you're going to be proactive,
not reactive, isn't that right?
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Okay, so seriously, oh my gosh, don't put it off
until it becomes a crisis. You are going to be
so sorry is that you didn't be a little more
proactive on that. Trust me on that, folks, Just trust
me on that. Okay. So now you've made the decision
to move, what to determine before ever even thinking about
(34:50):
conducting your search. Don't do the old shotgun approach. Well
there's this place over here, and so and so mentioned
this one, and there's a new one that just popped
up on the way work, and just go out, just
start looking at places that you are wasting your time.
You need to know what you're looking for and then
have a targeted, focused list and then go out and
see the places that will actually meet your needs so
(35:12):
you're not wasting time. Let me put it in perspective,
the average person spends or maybe family could be one
person fifty to one hundred hours running around looking at
all these places, trying to do their homework. They're trying
to do their best to get it right. Fifty to
one hundred hours. That's why senior care consulting clients spend
(35:36):
about four hours and they are all about it. They
love it. It's a major, major time saver because we
do most of the work for you. If you're doing
this on your own. What to determine before beginning your search.
You need to know what level of care you will need. Well,
what he means to level of care? Level of care.
(35:56):
Here's how I look at it. It's related to your licensure,
the licensure of the provider. So if you provide hands
on care, you must be licensed in the state of
wherever you're providing that care, and then the licensure dictates
what you must provide in all of the parameters and
(36:17):
limitations and all the staffing, all the stuff. Okay, so
levels of care long term care, that's the medical model.
That's the highest level. That's the nursing, home health center,
skilled nursing, wherever you want to call it. Long term
care is a level of care, it's the highest one.
Then you have assisted living that occupies a wide lane
that can help you minimally or fully with your bathing, dressing, grooming, toileting.
(36:42):
They offer some incontinent support to a point. They manage
your medications, They provide hydration snacks, all of that, there's
a full slate of activities for meaningful social engagement. Doctors
make house calls, actually come into the community, essentially making
a house call. There's transportation if you want to use
(37:03):
an outside doctor or go see a specialist. There's a
lot of support there. It's just not medical in nature
per se. Do you need the residential care level of care?
Do you need the home plus level of care? Intermediate
care facility i CEF Do you need that? You have
to determine. You have to figure out what you need
and then where you fit in that line, that list
(37:24):
of levels of care, long term care, assisted living, residential care,
home plus, and intermediate care facility I SEEF. All right,
number two, what type of care do you need? So
here's how I break it out. General care, just everyday
general care. Do you need memory care that's a special
(37:47):
type of care for someone with cognitive impairment. There's a
lot that goes into that. You may not need it now,
you may need it later, you may need it now. Okay,
you have to determine all these things. Do you need
skilled nursing and rehab? Do you need mental health care
or hospice care or respite care? So We need to
know our level of care, and then the type of care,
(38:09):
and then the big elephant in the room, how are
we going to pay for this stuff? It's expensive, So
you have your payment methods, private pay that means you're
writing a check, You're using your own resources to pay
for your care. And then you have Medicare. You have
Medicaid long term care insurance, which I think the number
(38:29):
is about seven percent of those who will require long
term care actually has a long term care insurance policy.
We need to get that number way up. Are you
a veteran or the spouse the surviving spouse of a
deceased veteran? What about the Vaaid and attendance benefit? You
(38:50):
need to figure all of that out. Location parameters. We
all want to be as close as possible so it's
convenient to go visit our loved one. The better question
is how how far are you willing to drive to
receive the best care. That's the much better question than
any personal preferences and needs. So that's something very very specific.
(39:13):
You know, most of most of my clients don't have
something that specific. Once in a while we do, though,
So I had a gentleman recently, Steve mothers played piano.
She's played that piano for seventy years, a long time.
It's look, it's just part of her DNA, it's hardwired
into her. At this point, she cannot do without her piano.
(39:35):
Can you find a place that will allow us to
take her small piano and put it in her apartment?
She needed the assisted living level at that point. So
I had to make sure that the top options that
we're going to tour and gather information on for them
to consider would accept her piano. Most places did, some
(39:56):
places did not. Okay, I had another person saying, you know,
my mother, if it has a beak on it, forget it.
Do not ever serve her foul right, she won't complain,
she won't eat a turkey sandwich or scrambled egg or whatever,
and no one would ever know that. So you have
(40:18):
to speak up. So your level of care, your type
of care, your payment methods, location, personal preferences and needs.
Once you have that determined, then and then only should
you begin your search and go out and then find
the top places that check all of the boxes. Otherwise
(40:39):
I'm just telling you you are wasting your time, and
that contributes to that fifty two one hundred hours. If
it sounds overwhelming, it is. If it sounds really complex,
like Steve, you just turn that into a great big
complex equation. And I was just going to go look
at some places. Well, it's a complex equation because if
(41:00):
you want to do it right that it is a
complex equation. Okay, if you're like, all right, I'm out,
I need some help with that. If you want to
reach out to my firm, Senior Care Consulting, we help
families and individuals every single day through the search and
selection process. The first thing, guess what we do. The
first thing, we conduct a proprietary geriatric care assessment. We
(41:23):
ask we have a six page worksheet. We ask all
of the questions necessary to determine guess what the level
of care you'll need, the type of care you need,
the payment methods we talk. We go through all the financials,
location parameters, personal preferences and needs. And that's our starting point.
And then we research the entire marketplace, not just a
(41:44):
short list of our buddies. Okay, we research the entire
marketplace and determine our top providers that check all the
boxes that meet our exact needs. Then we'll go out
with you together, and we will. We'll go out and
we'll take a tour of each place. I am a
former nursing home and assistant living administrator. I think I
(42:06):
look at this differently. I ask a lot of questions
that most of my clients would never know to ask,
gather critical information. When we're done, it only takes about
three or four hours and we're finished, and then I
produce a report to help you make an informed decision.
If that's resonating with you, if you're like, wait a minute,
I got my hand up. I need help. Nine one three,
nine four five twenty eight hundred or visit online at
(42:29):
Seniorcare Consulting dot com. We'll offer a free consultation. Let's
talk about that. We can definitely help, all right. I'm
Steve Keeker, and I wish you grace and peace. May
God bless you and your family on this day and
always join me next week right here on Senior Care Line.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
Does your business serve the elderly and their caregivers in
our area? There are hundreds of thousands of people either
receiving or providing senior care, and they need to know
about you. A unique and successful radio program called Senior
Care Live is the perfect opportunity to let your target
audience know about your amazing products and services. Senior Care
(43:12):
Live is currently adding a limited number of partner sponsors,
and if you're aligned with their mission, they want to
talk to you. They're interested in partnering with hospital organizations,
physician groups, home care providers, as state planning and older
law practices, financial advisors, insurance companies, real estate brokers, home
health agencies, and other providers serving the elderly and their caregivers.
(43:36):
Senior Care Live has a limited number of partner sponsor opportunities,
so call now at nine one three nine four five
twenty eight hundred nine one three nine four five twenty
eight hundred or visit seniorcare live dot com seniorcare live
dot com.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
Quid pro quo a Latin phrase that means an exchange
of goods or services where one transfer is contingent upon
the other. Here's one example. I'll recommend your senior care
community if you'll pay me a huge kickback from my referral.
The free referral services have a vested interest in you
choosing one of their business partners. That's how they make
(44:14):
their money. Does this paid recommendation sound, objective or credible,
of course not. I'm Steve Keeker with Senior Care Consulting.
I'm so proud to say we have never received a
single penny from any provider ever. We offer a placement
service with integrity for help finding the right senior care community,
without conflict of interest and without the quid pro quo
(44:38):
called nine one three, nine four five twenty eight hundred
nine one three nine four five twenty eight hundred Replacement
service with integrity at Seniorcare Consulting dot com
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