As we all grow older, one of our utmost fears is the possibility that one day we may need to leave our home. We fear leaving not only the source of our memories and comfort, but our sense of control. Our home is our security. In our home we decide what and when to eat, what time to go to bed, and who shall come to visit. The control we have in our home is the source of our independence, dignity, and quality of life.

Be an early planner  – decide to plan for retirement now.  Take the time to assess your home living environment and plan accordingly.  Remaining in our homes is not without certain challenges. Homes that were convenient when we were younger can cause problems in later years. As our lifestyles and needs change, so should our home environments. Thoughtful renovations can make remaining in our home as we age a reality; your dream retirement home may be right under your feet.

Generally, we don’t think of our homes as dangerous places, but statistics show otherwise. The National Center for Injury Control and Prevention has concluded that more than one third of adults age 65 and older suffer injuries from a fall each year. Among older adults, falls are the leading cause of injury deaths, and the most common cause of non-fatal injuries and hospital admissions for trauma.  One unfortunate fall can start a domino effect, causing us to lose our precious independence and control of our lives.

Taking a fresh look at your living arrangements can help eliminate many future risks. For example, alter the placement of furniture; examine whether you are likely to walk a winding path around end tables and hassocks, over extension cords and across multiple levels of carpet and flooring just to go from the television to the refrigerator.  Be mindful of how often you strain reaching for items in your kitchen that are too high to reach.  Do you crawl around the bathroom floor to find supplies buried in the bottom of a closet.  These are just a few home features or habits that increase our risk of falls and contribute to injuries, hospitalization, and forced moves from the home.  Changing some of these features not only enhance one’s enjoyment of a home, but because they appeal to most everyone, they may even enhance the value of your home.

Make use of the services offered by a competent home accessibility specialist, such as an occupational therapist, physical therapist, interior designer, home remodeler,  architect, independent living strategist, or case manager. These are individuals who can recommend ways to incorporate customized home accessibility improvements, based on your specific needs now and for the future as you grow older. These specialists offer personalized in-home consultations with you and your family, and work with a contractor to modify your home to suit your changing needs.  Get expert advice on affordable and workable solutions.   For example: perhaps you are  having trouble getting in and out of the shower.  Maybe a laundry room on the main floor would help to avoid stairs.  A bathroom addition that could accommodate extra laundry space may be a viable solution.  With a little imagination (and some input from experienced professionals) it’s possible to adapt a home to suit any situation and make it safe for your to age gracefully.

Financing Your Dream Retirement Home

As we all know, every project begins with an important question: How am I going to pay for all this renovation?   There may grants or other public money available to you – your local Council on Aging office can be a wonderful source for information to help you identify what options are available to you. Contact the nearest Council on Aging, or call the nationwide Eldercare Locator at 800-677-1116.

Home equity and home improvement loans are readily available from banks and mortgage lenders in your area. These loans enable homeowners to borrow against the equity in their homes and generally require loan payments to be made on a monthly basis.

If making monthly payments are a concern, than an alternative option might be a reverse mortgage. Reverse mortgages enable homeowners age 62 and older to convert a portion of their home equity into tax-free cash that can be used for any purpose without requiring monthly payments. Only when the borrower permanently moves out of the home, does the loan become due and payable, and the sum of the funds advanced, plus accrued interest, is repaid to the lender.  One should be careful about taking out a Reverse Mortgage if you think you will not be able to live in your home for at least four to five years after entering into this financial transaction, as the high closing costs are a factor to be considered.

Planning for a funeral can be a very somber experience. This is especially true if the funeral is your own. Doing so can be beneficial for several reasons, , such as relieving your loved ones of the burden of planning your funeral while they are upset and mourning your loss, or helping them honor and remember you the way you want to be remembered. There are many matters to consider when planning ahead for a death. I can help you to organize and plan things the way you choose, and take the burden off of family and friends. Here are a few steps that you can take in preparing for your funeral.

Know What Your Options Are

When it comes to planning your own funeral you should consider many options, such as whether or not you want to be buried or cremated; what type of casket or urn you may want; what music should be played, if any; which loved ones should be contacting the funeral home to help with the final arrangements and interment, and more. While some may wish to have an elaborate funeral and burial, others may want a simple memorial service. Planning ahead gives you the chance to make such choices without pressure on you or your loved ones.

Document Your Plans

When one is undertaking the planning of their funeral, I can help you with the legal matters. All important papers should be kept in a safe place where they can be accessed by your loved ones in the event of your death. Your wishes for your funeral should be included in those papers.

Allow Loved Ones to be a Part

The funeral and other events are part of the healing process for your loved ones. Do you want it to reflect your wishes on how you want to be remembered or do you want those decisions left to others after you are gone?. Keep this in mind during the planning process and allow your loved ones to be a part of making the decisions. It is important for them to be able to grieve, and celebrate your life in a way that will help give them some closure. Listen to their input, and incorporate their ideas when appropriate.

Handle the Finances

In the best of circumstances, you will have insurance that will cover the cost of your funeral, but this is not always the case. If possible, it is best to plan ahead and prepay for some of the services. This takes the financial burden of your final goodbyes off of your loved ones. I can help you decide between the various ways to financially prepare for your funeral.

The death of a loved one can be an extremely devastating emotional experience. It is very sad that during such a trying time, there is so much to handle, and so many things which must be done. For some, the task of dealing with their deceased loved one’s personal business can seem impossible. One way to simplify things a bit is to separate what must be done now, and what can be put off for a while. Another way is to have a checklist of what to do when a loved one dies. It is also a good idea to have an attorney to help ease the difficulty of handling business and legal matters. I have the knowledge and experience to help you and your loved one through this trying time. Here is a checklist of some things to do in this difficult time.

Notify the Authorities

If a death occurs at home, it will be up to the person who discovers the death to notify the proper authorities. Calling 911 is always the first step in getting this underway. Although the shock can be paralyzing, it is important to act quickly, especially if your loved one wished to be an organ donor. If the death of a loved one happens while he or she is in a hospital or hospice, they will handle the notification process for you.

Notify Family and Friends

This step is important not only on behalf of the deceased and their loved ones, but for you as well. The quicker you notify other loved ones of the deceased, the sooner you will have support for yourself. Notifying friends and family can make it possible for you to have help in handling the rest of the matters at hand. You will need someone to watch the home if the deceased lived alone, someone to pick up mail, take care of pets, etc.

Making Funeral Arrangement

In the best of circumstances, your loved one has already discussed how they want their funeral arrangements to be made, and written a memorandum of how the arranges should be made and who should make them. If not, perhaps you and the other family and friends can discuss the details of planning the funeral. The directors of funeral homes are very experienced at handling such matters and can guide you through the process of choosing a casket, scheduling the services, etc. I can help you to get through the paperwork.

Handling the Paperwork

If the deceased did not have a Last Will and Testament that named a Personal Representative to oversee the way his or her estate would be disposed, then a Personal Representative will have to be appointed by the Probate Court. There may be trusts, insurance policies, bank statements, credit card bills, loans, and other papers in the home of the deceased. I can help you deal with the mountain of paperwork and manage the bills that were left.

Caregivers often don’t recognize when they are in over their heads, and normally get to a breaking point. After a prolonged period of time, caregiving can become too difficult to endure any longer. Short-term the caregiver may be able to handle it. Long-term, help is needed.  Outside help at this point is considered necessary.

The common scenario with an overloaded caregiver frequently is as follows:

1. 1 to 18 months – the caregiver is confident, has everything under control and is coping well. Other friends and family are lending support.
2. 20 to 36 months – the caregiver may be taking medication to sleep and control mood swings. Outside help dwindles away and, except for trips to the store or doctor, the caregiver has severed most social contacts. The caregiver begins to feel alone and helpless.
3. 38 to 50 months – Besides needing tranquilizers or antidepressants, the caregiver’s physical health is beginning to deteriorate. Lack of focus and sheer fatigue cloud judgment and the caregiver is often unable to make rational decisions or ask for help.
4. It is frequently at this stage that family or friends intercede and find other solutions for care. This may include respite care, hiring home health aides or putting the disabled loved one in a facility. Without intervention, the caregiver him or herself may become a candidate for long-term care as well.

When the holiday season is upon us, caregivers feel even more stress — with planning, shopping and participating in holiday activities. This is an ideal time for family and friends to step in and provide some respite time and caregiving assistance.  Whether it is provided personally or arranged as a gift of services to be provided by a professional respite company or home care provider, it is a valued gift.

The Gift of time: Cost-effective and truly meaningful gifts are self-made coupons for cleaning the house, preparing a meal, mowing lawn/shoveling snow, respite times that allow the caregiver time off to focus on what he/she needs.

It is also very important to note that hiring a professional caregiver can provide valuable ongoing support to an overloaded family caregiver. A professional care manager can guide the family and the caregiver through the maze of long-term care issues. The care manager has been there many times — the family is experiencing it for the first time. An elder law attorney can help iron out legal problems. There are also cash benefits for Veterans, who served during a period of war, and their spouses, that pay for home care or assisted living.

If you are the one providing daily care for a loved one, your ailing family member would want you to seek help.  Take care of yourself and your needs, both physically and mentally.  Seek out professional help that will ease your burden and look for community service organizations that offer respite help.

There are significant gender differences when it comes to retirement.  For many women, retirement or the prospect of retirement may not be the relaxing retreat it is reputed to be.  In general, women earned less over their lifetimes than men and live longer in retirement, and they tend to have less money saved when they reach retirement.  According to the Government Accountability Office, 12 percent of women over age 65 live in poverty, compared to only 7 percent of men. Women frequently don’t have continuous full-time employment because they are more likely to take time out of the paid workforce, reduce their hours, or become self-employed. They do this in order to raise children and, in later years, many make similar choices to care for elderly relatives.

Marriage and relationship breakdown often has a greater financial impact on women, including on their retirement income; and the fact that women’s lower retirement savings have to be spread over a longer period than men’s retirement savings because they live longer.  A woman who is 65 years old today can expect to live to age 85, while a 65 year old many can expect to live only to age 81.  Women have lower lifetime earnings, because of this women reach retirement with smaller pensions and other assets than men do.  Elderly, unmarried women, including widows, get 51 percent of their total income from social security.  Unmarried elderly men get 39 percent; elderly married couples get 36 percent.  For 25 percent of unmarried women Social Security is their only source of income, compared to 9 percent of married couples, and 20 percent of unmarried men.

Aging Gracefully in Your Own Home

Funeral Planning

What to do When a Loved one Dies

After Death Planning for Widows of Veterans

Women and Retirement

You Can Leave the Nursing Home

Care-giving When You Need Outside Help

Social Security

Social Security has an inflation protected benefit that will last as long as you live, it is impossible to outlive one’s social security benefit.  The social security spousal benefit helps many women, even if they did not work at all outside the home.  74 percent of elder widows receive benefits based on earnings of their deceased spouse.  Social Security provides benefits to spouses of any age who care for children under age 16 if the worker (other spouse) is retired, becomes disabled, or dies.

Inheritance

 News reports speculate that the possibility of inheriting some money at one time or another will be a huge transfer of wealth to the baby boom generation, but the inheritance picture may not be so promising.  As women think about retirement planning, it may be useful to factor in any inheritance receive from parents. Knowing how much to expect requires a broad discussion with parents about estate planning, a difficult topic to raise because it involves discussions about money and death, two subjects that are very personal and uncomfortable for most people.

Women should make the most of any inheritance they receive.  The median value of what boomer families received from an inheritance was about $64,000.00.  While this seems like a lot of money, it is not going to provide for all of one’s financial and retirement needs. If you do receive an inheritance, make the most of it.  Here are some suggestions:

Don’t Do Anything – Losing a family member is difficult; take time to grieve.  While doing so, deposit the money in a stable, liquid account such as a money market account.  You can afford to take a couple of months to deal with your emotional needs rather than rushing into investments that you may regret later.

Don’t Blow It – When you receive an inheritance, you may feel rich.  It’s alright to spend a small amount of it on yourself, but do not blow it all on a boat, or a trip that you really cannot afford.

Make a Plan – Decide what you are going to do with the money before spending any of it.  Make a plan; it forces you to really think about what you want to do.

Pay off Debt – Consider paying off high-interest consumer or credit card debt.

Invest for the Future – Think about using the money to build a secure future.  Figure out how much you need to save for retirement and invest wisely in financial products that guarantee no loss of principal.  These types of safe financial products provide a slower interest growth, but with the current volatile economy, you want to make sure you do not lose what money you started with in the first place.

Inheriting IRAs – If you inherit an IRA, you can continue to take advantage of tax-deferred savings as a beneficiary.  The rules are different for spouses and non-spouses, and traditional and Roth IRAs.  Check with an estate planning attorney.

Spring is often a time for gatherings with family and friends – weddings, graduations, Mothers’ Day. Nursing home residents often want to participate in these gatherings but may be under the impression that they will lose Medicare coverage if they leave the facility to do so. This is not true.

The Medicare Benefit Policy Manual recognizes that although most beneficiaries are unable to leave their facility,

an outside pass or short leave of absence for the purpose of attending a special religious service, holiday meal, family occasion, going on a car ride, or for a trial visit home, is not, by itself evidence that the individual no longer needs to be in a SNF for the receipt of required skilled care.

A facility should NOT notify patients that leaving the facility will lead to loss of Medicare coverage. The Medicare Benefit Policy Manual says that such a notice is “not appropriate.”

If the resident begins a leave of absence and returns to the facility by midnight, the facility can bill Medicare for the day’s stay.  If the resident is gone overnight (i.e., past midnight) and returns to the facility the next day, the day the resident leaves is considered a leave of absence day.  Clarifying what seemed to be conflicting provisions in the Manuals, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) confirms that the facility can bill a beneficiary for bed-hold days during a SNF absence.

Chapter 6 of the Medicare Claims Processing Manual provides that the facility cannot bill a beneficiary during a leave of absence, “except as provided in Chapter 1 of the manual at §30.1.1.1.”  That section authorizes skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) to bill a beneficiary for bed-hold during a temporary “SNF Absence” if the SNF informs the resident in advance of the option to make bed-hold payments and of the amount of the charge and if the resident “affirmatively elect[s]” to make bed-hold payments prior to being billed.  Charges to hold a bed and maintain the resident’s “personal effects in the particular living space…are calculated on the basis of a per diem bed-hold payment rate multiplied by however many days the resident is absent, as opposed to assessing the resident a fixed sum at the time of departure from the facility.”  CMS distinguishes bed-hold payments from payments for admission or readmission, which are “not allowed.”

Residents can leave their SNFs for short periods, such as a day or two, to enjoy the holidays with their families and friends without losing Medicare coverage. Their SNFs are, however, allowed to bill them to hold their beds under Medicare rules.

When a veteran dies the widow may be eligible for non-service connected pension benefits even though on the surface it appears she will not.

Here is how it works:

The widow must meet the basic requirements as any other veteran’s widow filing for non-service connected pension except for income (Proper discharge and wartime service of veteran, marital criteria, net worth below ceiling for that individual).

Then determine what the income of the widow will be for the next twelve months, remembering that Life Insurance proceeds are an exempt income for VA purposes. (Hint: Do not assign over any insurance to the funeral home, because the VA will not recognize it as a bill paid by the widow).

From income will be deducted the widow’s anticipated medical expenses for the next twelve months.

Also deduct the burial expenses which include all normal expenses incident to the disposition of the remains such as the funeral, headstone, purchase of the grave with opening and closing, less amounts reimbursed by the VA (VA Burial benefits).

Also deduct the unreimbursed expenses of the “last illness” of the veteran. If death resulted from a lingering or prolonged illness, the period of the last illness is considered to have begun at the time the veteran became so ill as to require the regular and daily attendance of another person. That includes those bills paid by the spouse of the veteran for that period before his/her death. This does not include those bills that were already reimbursed or reported to the VA as a unreimbursed medical expense if the veteran was receiving VA pension.

To those deductions add the veteran’s “just debts”. Just debts do not include any debt that is secured by real or personal property and does not include jointly held credit card debt. But the VA does consider any other debt that would be recognized by a probate court.

Hopefully, the recalculated income is now below the pension rate which will give the widow a pension for at least the first year after the loss of the veteran.

Now apply for the life insurance and make application for VA Death Pension for the spouse.

After the VA has received the application, pay the bills.

When the VA sends the Award or denial letter then inform the VA of the other bills paid.