Insurance/Paying for Care
The emails come into our inbox. “Please help,” is usually how they start. What so often follows is the same story with only slightly different details. A 90-something parent, living on social security, has fallen, gone to the hospital and now needs rehabilitation to...
Insurance/Paying for Care
“My dad doesn’t have Medicare!” A friend said to me on the phone a few months ago. “What?” I responded. Thinking: This seems unlikely. Pretty much everyone over age 65 has some form of Medicare and my friend’s dad is at least 90 years old. Then he explained, “Dad has...
Insurance/Paying for Care
I have a confession. I’ve been avoiding writing about Medicaid. It’s just so complicated it scares even me the expert. But Medicaid can be really important to daughterhood. Someday you might have to decide if it’s right for your parent. So, you have to get smart...
Insurance/Paying for Care, Planning
My inbox is filled with emails from caregivers trying to figure out how to pay for their parents’ care. They’re facing complicated and hard choices. The big choices? Whether they should quit their job, move a parent into their home to avoid expensive care, or pay for...
Insurance/Paying for Care
In a recent survey, AARP found that about three-quarters of all caregivers spend, on average, 26 percent of their household income on caregiving. This is on top of the estimated $470 billion in unpaid care that they provide; and doesn’t include the potential lost...
Insurance/Paying for Care
“What do you mean Medicare doesn’t cover this?” My friend Sarah was caught off guard when I told her that her parent’s health insurance program doesn’t cover her parents’ care. What I explained is that there’s a lot Medicare doesn’t cover and one of the biggest gaps...