A couple of years ago, our financial manager suggested we might increase our LTC policy since care has increased so rapidly over the past few years. When we checked, it would have cost more to get a second smaller policy, than our original policy is costing us. We stuck with what we had and, if necessary, will pay for extra expenses from our personal funds.

A big concern of mine is that with all us baby boomers getting older, the cost of care will increase to the point where LTC premiums may increase or be prohibitive.

Yes, one needs to have a DURABLE POA so one can continue to function as POA when person is not longer competent. But even that doesn’t necessarily allow one to make all the necessary decisions and there may come a time to go to the courts to be appointed guardian. It is helpful if the person in question nominates the guardian as it will reduce any sibling wrangling when the time comes.

(Note Leigh comment #134: I believe you do have recourse to your sister’s irresponsible handling of your mother’s affairs, but you would probably have to challenge it in court, and be able to prove it. D/POAs should keep scrupulous books for their own protection for this reason.)

Similarly with advance care directives. (BTW, new to this blog so don’t know if these have been discussed, not seeing it in these comments so far.) This is perhaps the hardest for everyone involved to handle and yet is the most important when the time comes.

For everyone, it starts out scary, but once we got rolling, it was not too bad. Once a lot of the unknowns were known, it was not as intimidating (and they live 8 hours away from us, so a logistical challenge).

Two surprising lessons I’ve learned, and neither are legal or financial:
1. Being a senior citizen is hard work. I need to get into (and stay in) physical shape before I get there.
2. While they have various aliments for being in their late 80s, their biggest ailments really appear to be being out of shape and overweight. For many of the folks I see at the nursing home, the same appears to be true (lots of good minds still out there!).

It sounds funny, but if we look at seniority as needing to be in the best shape of our lives (relatively speaking), then this might help us make good choices now. In this way it mirrors financial health. We have to do hard things now (frugal, invest, etc.) to have financial health in the future.

I tell my kids that they’ll not have to do for me what we are doing for their grandparents (at least not for very long). I’ve been working hard everyday to be able to keep that promise. I do tell them I plan to live actively to 100 with the sole purpose of driving them and grandkids/greatgrandkids crazy!

This is often more important for couples (like JD and Kris) or situations where the child is living with the parent. If the parent dies and the child doesn’t have access to the account, not paying the rent means the child could get evicted. If the parent lives alone and dies and the money isn’t accessible then … you can’t pay the next month’s rent on an empty apartment.

Key thing is, what’s the plan and goals?

I’m not adding myself to my father’s checking account because I won’t need to pay rent his care home after he passes. Morbid, but true. I am also fine with telling other creditors to file a claim against his estate. (And no, I’m not worried about the cost of probate. I already cashed out his life insurance to pay hospital bills, so I won’t inherit anything. Probate provides a process to organize posthumous bills and pay them in the state-approved order — which means I can justify which ones get paid and which don’t as “I followed the law.”)

I first offered to help my dad manage his finances over 5 years ago, and have been regularly offering ever since. He said no right up until I got social services involved in March … which is also when he needed to be hospitalized due to severe anemia, and his memory problems became more apparent.

He also has no savings and he let his Medicare supplemental policy lapse over a year prior.

He went from the hospital to a nursing home, and is now in an adult family home. The medical bills have strapped his finances and he’s now applied for Medicaid and VA Aid & Assistance benefits. If he’d had his supplemental policy in force it would’ve covered a lot of this — but now that he’s diagnosed with cancer it will be difficult or impossible to get a supplemental policy.

Is there a chance of getting a different roommate? If there are opportunities to move to another room, that might be a good compromise, especially if there is some choice available as to who she’d move in with.

Off the top of my head, I can think of at least a handful of friends to whom this situation happened. Obviously I have no statistics, but I do think it’s one thing in favor of not having a family member devote their life to long-term care without a lot of thought as to how it will affect them. Especially if that person has to quit a job that could provide for him or her when there are health issues.

Regarding life insurance policies, do some number crunching. You may find yourself in a situation like I did. My dad had a policy that got really expensive. But I ran the numbers and realized he would have to live 12 years before it would not make sense to have paid on it.

My siblings and I found ourselves in a weird position of doing everything possible to help him live, while basically having a financial stake in him dying. It was kinda crazy!

Our decision was not as tough as it sounds. Because we could not imagine him living a dozen years, we kept paying the policy. The end result was that his policy left us each a nice gift. I’m certain that the insurance company would have preferred I cancelled the policy instead of crunching doing the math.

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You might want to look into assisted care facilities that will take Medicare as payment, if and when your mother’s funds are depleted. I remember being told this is often the case with facilities associated with churches, and the ones my sister and I visited were very nice.

I’d never heard of a tasty cake before. =)

However, if you gift your home to someone it creates a tax situation and a Medicaid 5 year lookback issue.

If his mom is enjoying herself around the others, as JD mentioned, your diagnosis is probably incorrect.

I strongly recommend getting new bank accounts and/or credit cards with more than one person on the signature cards, or at least adding your name to the signature cards of the existing accounts. That way, if something does happen to her, you still have access to the money/accounts, which could be frozen otherwise.

You have to remember to take care of yourself in all of this too. As someone else said, oftentimes the caregiver suffers mentally, emotionally, and physically when devoting themselves the care recipient.

There is also “homesteading”. This helps the spouse of a person in a nursing home to not be pushed out of their house when funds get to the bottom.

On the moving in thing. Don’t feel guilty. Your mother’s condition means she needs medical assistance. If you were to move her to your home, you would need to hire a full time medical professional to give her the kind of care she is getting where she is.

Also, while there is this horrible connotation out to the idea of “putting someone in a ‘home’.” the situation really depends on the people involved.
My grandmother now lives on the assisted living floor of a lovely seniors residence. It’s nearby so my mother visits multiple times a week and it’s a much better setting for my grandmother. She has mobility issues and the place has ramps and elevators and wide halls for walkers. My parents live in a 100 year old Victorian home – retrofitting that place so my grandmother could live comfortably there would be expensive and close to impossible (when she comes to visit, we have her sit in a lawn chair and carry her up the stairs).

Living where she does, she retains some of her independence as the residence runs activities she can choose to go to, brings in clothing companies she can shop at and arranges regular bus trips on accessible buses. It’s like living in a mini village or on a cruise ship.

If she lived with my parents she’d be stuck in the house all day with limited company and likely would not being doing as well as she is.

It is a cultural thing but I find that in North America, older people often really value their independence and sense they can take care of themselves. A lot of good residences give professional care while still allowing the residents to function independently and choose how to spend their days.

It’s not the right choice for everyone but it has been for my grandmother who loves having her own space.