Lucy clung to her coffee mug, gripping it so hard she was afraid it might shatter. “I’m telling you, Lucy, Mom and Dad made me promise that we would not put them into a nursing home,” her sister, Samantha said. “They need a caregiver. And since you’re a stay-at-home mom, we think you’d be perfect for the job.” Lucy glared…
The Golden Years May Have a New Name: The Bankrupt Years In the past month or so, a number of articles in the news have come out showing that seniors are declaring bankruptcy at an increasing and alarming rate. The debt burden on seniors is going up due to student loans, credit cards, and lack of retirement savings. Often, the…
Mary hung up the phone and frowned. “That can’t be right,” she said. “What can’t be right?” her husband James asked. He put his newspaper down and gazed at her. “Janice says she heard from Darla who heard from Laura that the End of Life Option Act has been overturned. If that’s true, we are going to need to change…
According to new federal data, gathered by Medicare from daily payroll records from more than 14,000 nursing homes in the United States, nursing homes have been under-reporting to the government their nurse and caretaker staffing levels for years. For families with loved ones dependent on nursing home care, this is likely not a surprise. There are nearly 1.4 million people…
Continuing care retirement communities (CCRCs) often require new residents to pay an entry fee in exchange for lifetime housing and priority access to healthcare, in addition to a monthly fee. These entry fees can be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. In many cases, a sizable portion of the entry fee may be refundable to the resident if they move…
One of the things we do at Absolute Trust Counsel is assist families with a disabled senior to preserve assets and also become eligible for Medi-Cal assistance to help them pay for nursing home care. One of the tools we often use to do this type of planning is an irrevocable trust. We also sometimes have to help families who…
Angela stared into her coffee cup and shook her head. “I don’t know what to do, Fred. Mom’s nursing home is threatening to kick her out because her Medicare coverage has run out.” Fred frowned. “But she qualified for Medi-Cal. Did you tell them that?” Angela nodded. “Yes, I did. The nursing home administrator told me that they have a…
Julia was worried. “I’m telling you, Mom had a big bruise on her leg when I visited her yesterday at the nursing home,” she told her sister, June. “She says she doesn’t remember how it happened. When I asked a nurse, all she said was, ‘Oh, your mother is always falling. She doesn’t always use her walker.’ Mom doesn’t have…