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Luckily it is not about my wife or I but a family friend.
It is obvious to everyone who knows him the ladies husband is crashing mentally.
Over the past year it's gotten worse where he is starting to get very difficult to deal with.
The wife told a friend she is thinking of putting him in an assisted care facility but the monthly fee is staggering... the one I know about is $10,000 a month but it is a very good facility.
Financially how does a couple handle this if they don't have millions? The couple is well off in regards to owning a nice home without a mortgage and appear to do well in retirement, both are in their early 80's, but at $10,000 a month even a half million won't last forever.
Generally speaking how is this handled with medicare or medicaid? Are they required to sell the house and, if they do, where does the spouse live?
Oh, long term care insurance? I am not sure but if I had to guess they don't have any.
A good number of years ago we tried to purchase long term care insurance but couldn't qualify.
I do believe I would be somewhat protected. I suffered a 50% disability during my military service in Vietnam in 1968 (and you thought Vietnam was paid for) and receive a monthly benefit of $1,179.16 along with free VA healthcare.
My understanding is if I ever needed long term care I could obtain it through the VA but I have no idea as to its quality or even availability. The good point about this is it's all taken care of and wouldn't leave my wife destitute.
We were able to obtain home care health insurance but I know few of the perks.... someone comes to our house I guess.
I would try your town's or counties' department that handles older individuals and ask if they can give you advice.
SHINE, I think in all states can give you some help on the medicate rules. Check the web site. Don't know if they can on Medicaid.
A good number of years ago we tried to purchase long term care insurance but couldn't qualify.
I do believe I would be somewhat protected. I suffered a 50% disability during my military service in Vietnam in 1968 (and you thought Vietnam was paid for) and receive a monthly benefit of $1,179.16 along with free VA healthcare.
My understanding is if I ever needed long term care I could obtain it through the VA but I have no idea as to its quality or even availability. The good point about this is it's all taken care of and wouldn't leave my wife destitute.
We were able to obtain home care health insurance but I know few of the perks.... someone comes to our house I guess.
Will you be able to pick the care facility or does the VA have their own facilities?
Locally a friend’s dad qualified to go into the VA nursing home that was new and very nice but it was full. They paid for all his care in another home that was very nice. He had dementia.
A work associate's wife developed Alzheimers at an early age. Eventually he put her into a memory care facility. He just paid for it. A decade later, she was still alive, but by then he had live-in girlfriend.
What I did when DH developed dementia at age 62: Moved to another state where cost of living was better; also moved to a smaller townhouse; set up all legal documents (while husband could still sign papers) with an elder law attorney; found a day-care facility for husband for two years while I visited every full-time dementia facility with in a 100 mile radius; and waited for the day to come when I "hit the brick wall" re taking care of him at night. The owner of the small memory care home (only 12 patients) said a place would be ready day or night. I had him at home for over 13 years.....tough but I did hit the brick wall. He was there for six months, caught the flu, and never recovered. He certainly did not know how fancy the facility was; he did not know if he had a roommate; he did not know that he had put on pink fuzzy socks (which were freshly laundered); he did not know that his diet consisted of just what he loved eating; and he did not know that I visited. He did know that someone played "Jesus Loves You" every night for his sleepy time. The money came from our savings and I figured I would pay for six years but he did not last. Advice: Pick a place that is clean and small. The patient's needs are not that of a normal person. I attended many seminars given by local agency on aging to learn what to expect.....really helped me. My husband was not aggressive - more like a happy drunk (he did not drink). Each person's dementia symptons will be different.
If you are a wartime veteran, you or your spouse would be eligible for Veteran's Aid and Attendance if you can't get into a VA home. It's not a lot, typically around $1200 a month, for a spouse, but it's a little bit extra $$ to help pay. Just an AL is not typically $10,000/month. That's more like Memory Care costs. AL is usually around $5K/month or even less in some parts of the country. We had my MIL in regular AL as her dementia was not that bad. She just needed to live in a protected-type environment so she wouldn't accidently hurt herself or get lost. Here in TN, we were paying about $3200/month, but additional care was extra if she had needed it. With VA A&A, her little pension, and SS she just about had the money covered herself, and we filled any gaps and paid for any extras she needed.
The reality is that most families can't for a long period of time.
We went through with my paternal grandparents over the past couple of years. She went into an ALF in late summer 2022. She should have probably never been placed there, but it was quickly apparent that her dementia was so severe and progressing so quickly that this wasn't an appropriate place for a patient with that level of need.
Grandmother and grandfather kept all of their money separately. No one had access to the money either of them had. Each one had around $100,000 in cash in the bank. She was in facilities for about twenty months and spent almost all of that. Grandfather was only in a facility for about four months. Once the kids got access to both of their financial accounts, then paid for all the medical bills, final expenses, and legal fees (to this point), about $30,000 in cash remains.
Had they both been in care for longer, the house would have likely had to be sold to keep them in the facilities they were in before they landed in a double occupancy Medicaid bed somewhere. The house has been on the market for three months, but needs a lot of updates, is overpriced (IMO), and located in a very rough area. Who knows what it will eventually sell for.
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