Hoping sending a doctor to your house will save money, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is starting a house-calls study. It’s called the Independence at Home Demonstration. It will test whether giving certain types of patients primary care at home will both improve care and cut costs.
The program is accepting applications until February 6. According to a press release, participants must:
- Have multiple chronic conditions
- Be covered by original, fee-for-service Medicare
- Require someone’s assistance with two or more activities of daily living such as bathing, dressing, eating or walking.
- Have had a medically-necessary hospital admission within the last 12 months
- Have received rehabilitation services in the last 12 months
The trial may accept as many as 10,000 people. You can read more in the press release and apply to the program at CMS.gov.
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Leigh Ann Otte is a freelance writer who specializes in health and aging issues. She covers finding and paying for senior care for OurParents.
Find Cheaper Medicine With Online AARP Calculator
A little planning might help you or your senior parents avoid the dreaded Medicare doughnut hole. And AARP offers a handy dandy calculator that helps with that planning. Plug in your medicines, and get alternatives that may save you money.
From an AARP column featuring five tips to make the most of Medicare:
4. Be wise about prescription drug costs. Take time to learn about your lower-cost medication options. Use the Doughnut Hole Calculator to learn how to avoid or delay falling into the Medicare Part D coverage gap, also known as the “doughnut hole.” This tool is really easy to use and lets you print a letter for your doctor for each medication option that may save you money. In fact, you may find ways to stay out of the doughnut hole all together.
You can read all five tips here: “How To: Get the Most Out of Your Medicare.”
You may also be interested in:
- Which Medicare Services Are Free? Where to Find Out
- Medicare “Extra Help”: Eligible Seniors Not Signing Up
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Leigh Ann Otte is a freelance writer who specializes in health and aging issues. She covers finding and paying for senior care for OurParents.
Even With Long-Term Care Insurance, Care Can Be Expensive
Having long-term care insurance doesn’t always preclude paying an arm and a leg for care, suggests a post at the financial site FiveCentNickel.com.
The author’s father needs some substantial in-home care—probably eight to 10 hours a day, including “nighttime needs,” which push up the hourly cost. The parents have long-term care insurance, but, the author says:
The LTC coverage doesn’t kick in for 90 days, which means they’ll have to foot the bill for three months on their own — to the tune of somewhere between $7k-9k/month. Yikes! That’s a huge amount. And even after the LTC policy kicks in, they’ll be facing $2k-$3.8k in monthly expenses related to his care.
Fortunately, the author’s parents have enough money saved to cover the costs. You can read the post here: “The High Cost of Elder Care.” Some of the reader comments below it are also interesting.
Have you or your parents used a long-term care policy yet? What was your experience?
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Leigh Ann Otte is a freelance writer who specializes in health and aging issues. She covers finding and paying for senior care for OurParents.
Christmas and Elderly Parents: How to Open the Door to Difficult Topics
Christmas day may not be the time to talk about long-term care plans. But it’s a good time for a precursor conversation, says Bob Mauterstock, author of Can We Talk? A Financial Guide for Baby Boomers Assisting Their Elderly Parents.
He tells Mindy Todd on her New England NPR radio show The Point:
What I’ve learned is there’s two things that are most important to our elder parents. First is maintaining control of their lives and how can they stay in their home, how can they continue to drive, how can they continue to live the life that they’ve lived. That’s first and most important. But as they start to age and as they lose their health, a second thing becomes increasingly important, and that’s how do I want to be remembered? How will my children, my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren remember me?
Mauterstock suggests starting the conversation with the latter topic and then introducing the idea of a family meeting to discuss the former. In the interview, “Aging Parents,” he also talks about who should organize the meeting (the sibling he calls the alpha child), how to introduce the topic and who should be involved.
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Leigh Ann Otte is a freelance writer who specializes in health and aging issues. She covers finding and paying for senior care for OurParents.
At Christmastime, many people visit elderly parents they haven’t seen for a while. And it’s not unusual to notice changes that may be surprising. You may wonder whether they indicate something serious, such as Alzheimer’s.
Ann Shields, executive director of Cypress Springs Alzheimer’s & Memory Support Residence in Tulsa, OK, goes over some potential signs of Alzheimer’s in an article in Tulsa World:
There are 10 warning signs, according to the Alzheimer’s Association, that might help you identify the disease in a loved one: memory loss that disrupts daily life; challenges in planning or solving problems; difficulty completing familiar tasks; confusion with time or place; trouble understanding visual images and spatial relationships; new problems with words in speaking or writing; misplacing things and the inability to retrace steps; decreased or poor judgment; withdrawal from work or social activities, and changes in mood and personality.
If you suspect a loved one may have Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia, contact his or her regular primary care physician to discuss the concerns.
In the article, “Family Gatherings Good Time to Notice Behavior Changes,” Shields also mentions a few key things to look for in an assisted living community for people with dementia.
Tomorrow, we’ll go over tips on how to start difficult conversations with aging parents around Christmas.
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Leigh Ann Otte is a freelance writer who specializes in health and aging issues. She covers finding and paying for senior care for OurParents.
Overtime Proposed for Home Care Workers; May Increase Rates
Home care rates may be up for a raise if proposed regulations from the Obama administration go through, says The New York Times.
Right now, home care workers are lumped into the same category as babysitters, meaning they don’t have to be paid minimum wage or overtime, the article explains. Most do get at least minimum wage, but many don’t get overtime. It’s only fair that they be treated like other workers, some say. But there are critics of the proposal.
William A. Dombi, vice president for law at the National Association of Home Care and Hospice, said workers might not receive much overtime pay as a result of these changes. “These new rules might come out with everybody behind,” he said. “Workers might not get the hours they want and agencies might have higher administrative and recruiting costs.”
Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said any increased costs would be modest. She said it was hard to project exactly what employers would do, whether they would have many employees continue to work overtime or would hire additional workers to minimize overtime.
You can read the article here: “Wage Protection for Home Care Workers.” What do you think? Should the proposed regulations go through? Are you worried about possible cost increases?
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Leigh Ann Otte is a freelance writer who specializes in health and aging issues. She covers finding and paying for senior care for OurParents.
Last-Minute Christmas Gift Ideas for Caregivers
If you’re looking for a last-minute Christmas gift for a sibling or elderly parent who’s a caregiver, check out “A Caregiver’s Christmas Wish List” at the AARP website. It’s written by Amy Goyer, who’s a family caregiver herself. She lists intangible items that would make a big difference in her life. For example:
So many very well-meaning people are quick to (lovingly) offer their opinion of what I should be doing differently. …
My wish: to hear more, on a regular basis, about the things I’m doing well – the things you admire. The things I do that make a positive difference in my parents’ lives.
Then head over to “Gift Ideas for Caregivers” at the Washington Post website, which translates some of Goyer’s ideas to more tangible Christmas gifts. For example, set up your own card-of-the-month club: “Find funny and encouraging greeting cards, and send one to the caregiver every month.”
If you want a wish list of items you can buy in a store, read part two of Goyer’s post here.
Affordable Option for Ongoing Medical Care
If your elderly parent were struggling to care for a spouse but didn’t want to pay for live-in help or consider assisted living, what would you advise?
Medicare advocate Toni King answers such a question at the Texas website yourHoustonNews.com. Her answer: Consider home health-care. The bonus: Medicare pays for it (unlike with a lot of nursing home care). King writes:
My husband and I have experienced the problem. We talked with a home health agency who explained how his parents could maximize their Medicare dollars with home health care benefits. There is not a co-pay or deductible for home health care. “Original” Medicare will pay 100 percent for any medical services provided by a home healthcare agency.
There are, of course, conditions that must be met before Medicare will pay for the care, which is intermittent. King lists them in the column, “Reader Needs Guidance on Long-Term Care.”
You can find home health-care agencies in your area, along with reviews, here. (Look for agencies that provide medical care, not just custodial.)
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If you pay for an aging parent’s care, you may be eligible for some tax-saving options, Forbes reports. For example, consider a son whose mother lives with him:
If his employer offers one, the son could open up a flexible savings account for dependent care (mom would have to be his dependent and live in his house for at least half the year). You can put in $5,000 pretax salary each year to pay for eligible dependent care expenses incurred that year. Typically these accounts are used for expenses for paying someone to watch your kids while you work, but they can work for “sitting” services for mom too. If you’re in the 40% combined federal and state income tax bracket, it’s like saving $2,000. There’s also the federal dependent care tax credit, but for high-income earners, the FSA gives you a bigger break.
The article, “Tax Breaks For Caregiving Expenses Help Sandwich Generation,” also explains a few other options to save on taxes—whether you’re paying for care yourself or for an elderly relative.
You may also be interested in:
- Free Tax Help for Seniors: Get Special Credits and Deductions
- Supporting Elderly Parents? How to Qualify for Tax Deductions
- Tips to Help Caregiver Siblings Financially–Within Tax Laws
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Leigh Ann Otte is a freelance writer who specializes in health and aging issues. She covers finding and paying for senior care for OurParents.
