This month marks Long-Term Care Awareness Month. We have the knowledge and tools these days to live healthily and happily throughout our lives. But as we age, we need to invest more in our health. That’s why it’s crucial to understand how to properly seek out and receive long-term care when it comes time to adjust your living situation to accommodate your needs.
Long-term care is a set of services that help individuals maintain their health and independence. Long-term care can be found at a variety of locations and through a range of caregivers, depending on a person’s individual needs. Long-term care refers to care provided by a range of caregivers in a variety of settings. Long-term care may be provided at an adult day care facility or a nursing home for example.
Long-term care also includes health and personal care provided at home. Homecare usually offers a wide range of services that help individuals stay in their homes if possible and retain as much independence as they can. Long-term care is usually offered in a facility or at the individual’s home. In addition, long-term care is sometimes provided by a family member in their home instead.
Most home-based services involve personal care, such as help with bathing, dressing, taking medications, and supervision to make sure a person is safe. Family members, partners, friends, and neighbors usually provide this type of care unpaid. While bringing on a specialized long-term care nurse is likely a prudent decision, factors of trust and cost may prevent a family from hiring a nurse for long-term care.
If a family opts for home-based long-term care services provided by paid caregivers, it will likely include caregivers found informally, and healthcare professionals such as nurses, home health care aides, therapists, and homemakers, who are hired through home health care agencies. These services include home health care, homemaker services, friendly visitor/companion services, and emergency response systems.
Long-term care comes with expenses as well. You may have Medicare coverage, annuity riders, or have simply budgeted for the expense. Either way, long-term care is important for maintaining your health in later years and is thus important to budget for.
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Long-term care can become a major expense and can sometimes come out of nowhere. A financial advisor may have the tools you need to protect yourself from surprise costs and help cover the costs of long-term care. To get started with a financial professional, contact us at (603) 261-3736.
Bob has a passion for making your money work hard for you. He takes profound joy in ironing out a plan for a long and comfortable retirement, no matter what your current income or level of wealth. With a work ethic second to none, he has a zeal for transforming uncertainty into stable ways for you to protect your future and your family. He knows that the quality of your life you enjoy today can remain as rewarding—or even better—after retirement.
With a strong background in information technology, Carol is instrumental in building operational policies and strategies that keep the organization functioning smoothly. Carol’s organizational skills and her flexibility to jump from priority to priority along with her commitment to customer service makes her an essential part of the Grimard Financial team. When Carol is not working with the Grimard Financial Family, she is a very creative and accomplished photographer.