Category Archives: Long Term Care Planning

Ten Expectations for Elder Care and Quality of Life

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New Jersey’s Expert Home Care for Elders and Seniors provides care for your aging loved ones since 1984. Please call us when your loved one needs help – 800-848-2336.

10 Real Expectations for Quality of LIfe in a Well Managed Long Term Care Facility, by Jill B. Thomas RNC, LNHA is the Vice President and Founder of Advance Care Planning, Inc

Advising Your Client How to Recognize Ten Real Expectations for Quality of Life in a Well Managed Long Term Care Facility

Long term care facilities will become home to millions of “Baby Boomers,” in the coming years. Many people fear the move from their own home to a long term care faciliy.. they just don�t know what to expect. Every person has a right to good care under the 1987 Federal Nursing Home Reform Law. 

The law, which is part of the Social Security Act, states that a long tem care facility must help each resident ‘attain or maintain’ his or her highest level of well being – physically, mentally and emotionally. This report sets the expectations of those needing to address the long term needs of their family members. Through the use of the Advancer Care Plan, a family member can count on these expectations, and more importantly, can be assured that the care is specifically tailored to the loved one’s needs.

Read the full 10 Expectations of Long Term Care

Tips Caring for an Elder

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New Jersey’s Expert Home Care for Elders and Seniors provides senior care, home care & live-in care for your aging loved ones since 1984. Please call us when your loved one needs help – 800-848-2336.

Family Caregiving Skills 

-Educate yourself regarding your loved one’s illness and/or disability.

-Communicate efficiently and succinctly with healthcare professionals.

-Recognize you are a healthcare consumer deserving quality healthcare.

-Embrace your importance as a member of the healthcare team.

-Always provide input and ask as many questions as needed.

-Pick your battles; don’t sweat the small stuff. Identify inconsequential matters and focus your attention elsewhere

-Be an advocate—speak up. The squeaky wheel usually gets the grease.

With a major role change such as the one associated with becoming a family caregiver, emotions can and will run the gamut. There are in fact five stages of grief that are widely accepted in the scientific community to occur as denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. Living and coping through each of these stages composes the learning framework for us to be able to adjust to witnessing someone we love fall victim to a debilitating illness.

NJ Elders Living Longer – Live in Home Care

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New Jersey’s Expert Home Care for Elders and Seniors provides care for your aging loved ones since 1984. Please call us when your loved one needs help – 800-848-2336.

There are roughly 70,000 centenarians in the United States. About one-third are doing quite well and living without any cognitive impairment or other functional disability. Estimates are that by the middle of this century, 800,000 Americans will be centenarians.

The increased scientific attention to longevity has uncovered some common characteristics among centenarians:

Geography may play a role. Growing up in harsh physical environments may be an advantage. Scientists have observed a prevalence of centenarians in a belt running through the Dakotas and Minnesota up through Nova Scotia. Sardinia and Okinawa also have disproportionate pockets of centenarians, yet no one knows why.

It helps to be female: 85 percent of centenarians are women, but male centenarians tend to be in better shape than women. Women who have children after age 40 stand a greater chance of living to 100.
People who live to the age of 100 are born to relatively young parents.

Genetics is a big factor, but lifestyle is critical, too. The Adventist Health Study at California’s Loma Linda University found that members of the Adventist faith with good lifelong habits such as healthy diets, exercise and not smoking had an average life expectancy of about 10 years longer than the U.S. population as a whole.

A sense of humor is important. “We wonder if that’s part of some interesting personality traits that are conducive to managing stress well,” according to Perls. When he asked a husband-centenarian how he kept his centenarian wife happy, the husband said, “If I told you, you’d lose your job.”

NJ Seniors Worried About Retirement & Health Costs

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New Jersey’s Expert Home Care for Elders and Seniors provides care for your aging loved ones since 1984. Please call us when your loved one needs help – 800-848-2336.

Americans Much More Worried about Retirement, Health Costs

Americans’ confidence in enjoying a comfortable retirement has dropped to its lowest level in seven years, according to the 18th annual Retirement Confidence Survey® (RCS) conducted by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI). The percentage of workers who were very confident about having enough money for a comfortable retirement decreased sharply, from 27 percent in 2007 to 18 percent in 2008, a decline of 9 percentage points and the biggest one-year drop in the 18-year history of the survey.

More than half of retirees (54 percent) say they are now more concerned about their financial future than they were right after they retired, a 14 percentage-point increase from a year ago (40 percent in 2007).

In addition, health-care costs are a big concern for retirees. Among those who left the workforce earlier than planned, more than half (54 percent) say they did so because of health problems or disability. Almost half of retirees (44 percent) say they have spent more than expected on health-care expenses.

Long Term Care Insurance – Long Term Care Planning

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New Jersey’s Expert Home Care for Elders and Seniors provides care for your aging loved ones since 1984. Please call us when your loved one needs help – 800-848-2336.

More Younger People Buying Group LTC Insurance

Sales of group long-term care insurance policies jumped in 2007, while the average age of buyers dropped.

More than 62 percent of group LTC insurance buyers are now under age 55, the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance’s 2008 sourcebook reveals. Nearly 10,000 employers groups now offer some form of employer-sponsored long-term care insurance.

The research also examines group LTC insurance claims and finds that four of the nation’s largest group long-term care insurers paid a cumulative $172.1 million in claims during 2007, a 16.9 percent increase over their benefit payments the prior year.

Interestingly, nearly 12 percent of those receiving first-time benefit payments from their group long-term care insurance were under the age 60, the report shows. Payments for home care accounted for nearly 40 percent of claims, while payments for nursing home care equaled 44.5 percent.

Reproduced with permission of CD Publications’ “Selling to Seniors.”

For more information, visit www.seniorsnews.net or call 1-800-666-6380.

New Jersey Medicaid Planning for Home Care

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New Jersey’s Expert Home Care for Elders and Seniors provides care for your aging loved ones since 1984. Please call us when your loved one needs help – 800-848-2336.

Medicaid Planning 

For New Jersey Seniors preparing for the future and facing the prospect of long-term care with moderate income and assets, you eventually may have to rely on Medicaid to pay part or all of the cost of care.

Medicaid planning, using a qualified elder law attorney, allows you to correct inequities in the system. Medicaid planning has gotten a bad name because some individuals, who would normally have too many assets to ever qualify for Medicaid, deliberately use it, many years in advance, to give away everything to their family so as to qualify for Medicaid. It is wrong to abuse the system in this way and to use taxpayer dollars to insure an inheritance for the family. And if that person is not anticipating immediate care, this strategy is just plain dumb. A list of practitioners who specialize in this area of helping people with Medicaid issues can be found at http://www.longtermcarelink.net/a7medicaidplanning.htm

Expert Home Care NJ – Helps Seniors Plan Home Care

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At Expert Home Care in New Jersey, our senior clients tell us they object to long term care planning because they believe Medicare or the Veterans Benefits Administration will take care of them. While this is true to a certain extent, these people simply don’t understand the limitations of these government programs.

Here are frequent quotes taken from individuals in NJ who have voiced misconceptions about long term care planning.

“Uncle Jimmy got along just fine with the government paying his care”

“I can give away my assets and have the government pay for it”

“We have a trust and all of our assets will go to our family so the government will pay for our care”

“I’m not interested in home care or assisted living, just stick me in a nursing home and Medicaid will pay the bill”

“Long term care insurance is too expensive”

Government could be more involved in providing care but our constipated system of delivery prevents this from happening. The National Aging Network, a government-sponsored program, is in the best position to help people receive long term care in their homes. And studies have shown that the cost of providing this kind of care is significantly less than the cost of providing nursing home care through government programs.

Unfortunately, for every dollar that supports a person through the Aging Network the government spends about $270 supporting a person in a nursing home. Because it has inadequate funding, the National Aging Network must confine its valuable services to people who have little income or for social reasons are disadvantaged. Moderate and middle income Americans can receive some services from the network but are mostly excluded from the more valuable caregiving services.

We believe the public’s misunderstanding of Government long term care programs is an impediment to proper long term care planning. When people understand the limitations of relying on government programs they are most likely to be more motivated to plan for the future by making provisions in advance and providing advance funding to pay for care. Prior planning also allows people to have a choice in their care setting and in the type of services they receive.

Who Pays for Long Term Care in New Jersey

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New Jersey’s Expert Home Care for Elders and Seniors provides care for your aging loved ones since 1984. Please call us when your loved one needs help – 800-848-2336.

Who Pays for Long Term Care

The American public believes that our government will provide long term care in New Jersey when needed. This misconception prevents people living in New Jersey from doing proper planning for the future need for care. According to the National Care Planning Council, (www.longtermcarelink.net) many people think they can give away assets prior to the need for long term care and qualify for Medicaid.

Most New Jersey residents may use the system and allow Medicaid to cover care but at what cost? And why would you want to spend your remaining years in a nursing home? As we know, it is the preferred living arrangement for Medicaid. Why go through the expense and effort of trying to manipulate the system to get welfare care, when a little preplanning at an earlier age would be a better option?

Home Care & Live in Care Planning in New Jersey

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New Jersey’s Expert Home Care for Elders and Seniors provides care for your aging loved ones since 1984. Please call us when your loved one needs help – 800-848-2336.

Government caregiver resource services such as area agencies on aging and related ADRC pilot programs typically reach out to caregivers through referrals from hospitals, discharge workers, doctors, home health agencies and nursing homes. Caregivers seeking help outside of this referral network generally aren’t aware of government advisory services.

In the private sector, help with caregiving issues is generally provided when a caregiver calls a specific agency, nonprofit organization or an advisor. There is no nationwide, private sector one-stop shopping source of help for all the types of care provider services that are available in the community.

The national care planning Council has discovered an answer to help desperate caregivers find the one-stop shop support they need. A 2004 study by the National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP estimates nearly six in ten (59%) caregivers are currently employed. Many of these working caregivers will use their Internet access at work to find the caregiving support they need.

 

New Jersey Eldercare Crisis – Long Term Care Planning

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New Jersey’s Expert Home Care for Elders and Seniors provides care for your aging loved ones since 1984. Please call us when your loved one needs help – 800-848-2336.

Crisis of Eldercare

Eldercare providers and advisers who deal with the public know the need for long term care. An elder crisis in NJ can often arise without warning. In many cases, desperate family caregivers are frantically trying to find services, advice or care funding sources to help their loved ones with unexpected long term care needs.

This sudden need for help often occurs when the loved one needing care has recently demonstrated unsafe behavior, or there has been an injury or sudden illness or there is a pending release from nursing home rehab or the current caregiver can no longer cope. Help must be found right now.

Unfortunately, many family caregivers, operating in crisis mode don’t know where to turn for help. It’s not that there aren’t advisory services out there to help them, it’s just that the caregivers often don’t know where to find these services.