50+ Lifestyles

Your Advocacy

By Jamie Long
the “Passionate Patient Advocate”
GolderCare Solutions

Avoiding the Worst Mistake When Mom Needs Long-Term Care

Q: What’s the worst mistake you can make when Mom needs long-term care?

A: Trusting the long-term care system.

Trusting the long-term care system to do right by Mom is a big mistake. Taking a passive stance with regard to the system and simply accepting what it serves up to Mom along the course of her care journey can be dangerous for her. In most cases, there will be critical points along the way at which you will need to actively intervene in order to make sure Mom gets the care she needs. Failing to do so could endanger Mom’s health or well-being. In the long run, passive acceptance just won’t cut it.

Surprisingly, however, accepting the system at face value can endanger you as well as Mom.
Most people think the purpose of the long-term care system is to render quality long-term care in order to take care of Mom and other frail patients. They think the long-term care system is about Mom. They think its purpose is to further her well-being. But they are mistaken. Quality long-term care for Mom is only a possible, but unlikely, side benefit of the system.

The primary purpose of the long-term care system isn’t the effective and efficient delivery of long-term care. Nor is it simply to make a profit from the delivery of that care.

The primary purpose of the system goes far beyond using chronic illness to make money. In the final analysis, the real purpose of the long-term care system is to separate Mom from her money during the course of her illness. It’s all about spending her down to nothing and extracting every last penny from her.

The system is, of course, constantly evolving. It is constantly looking for more ways to make more money from Mom’s need for chronic care. So it should come as no surprise that over the last decade, the system has begun eyeing your money in order to satisfy its hunger after Mom’s money has run out. Keep in mind then that a new and added purpose of the long-term care system is to extract as much of your money as possible over the course of Mom’s long-term care journey.

In recent years, the system has become quite sophisticated in developing ways of separating you from your money. It has begun utilizing more strategies – such as fiduciary or contractual – to hold you personally liable to pay for Mom’s long-term care. In other cases, it simply guilts, bullies or deceives loved ones into personally paying for Mom’s care.

As an example, Bob is acting as Mom’s agent under a Power of Attorney. He signed her into the local nursing home using that Power of Attorney. Unbeknownst to Bob, in signing the admission agreement as Mom’s agent he personally guaranteed payment for her care.

Bob keeps the nursing home up-to-date on Mom’s finances and, as her assets begin to dwindle, the nursing home has Bob sign a Medicaid application on Mom’s behalf and files it with the Department of Human Services. When the asset investigation reveals that Mom helped pay for a sick grandchild’s care 58 months ago, Mom is disqualified from receiving Medicaid for 18 months. Mom has no way of paying for the next 18 months of care, so the nursing home sticks Bob with the bill. When Bob doesn’t pay, they sue him and get a judgment against his house.

Bob made the mistake of trusting the system. He trusted the system would do right by Mom, and he trusted the system would do right by him. He was wrong. The system not only spent Mom down to nothing (which could likely have been avoided), it then began spending down Bob’s money as well. In the end, it caused Bob and his wife significant and unplanned financial hardship.

The good news is that no one has to trust the system. Instead of your working for the system, you can make it work for Mom and for you. GolderCare’s independent, multi-specialty team of long-term care coaches and advocates can safely and happily guide you through the minefields of long-term care to keep both Mom and you safe. We can usually help you protect Mom’s assets. And we can most assuredly enable you to protect your personal assets from the costs of Mom’s long-term care.

Get the help you need to make your encounter with the long-term care system a successful one . . . for Mom and for you.

Jamie Long is the owner of GolderCare Solutions and has earned a Certificate from the Professional Patient Advocate Institute. You can reach Jamie at GolderCare Solutions Unlimited, LLC (309) 764-2273.