How to Fund Long-Term Care, with Daphne Davis

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

The following podcast is provided by pinnacles senior placements LLC and answers for elders radio. And Welcome back to answers for elders radio everyone. We are here with Daphne Davis from pinnacles senior placements and Daphne, it’s always so enlightening to speak with you about all of your knowledge with our seniors and thank you so much again for being with us today. Oh, you’re so welcome. I’m being here well, we love having you and the month of July is all about financial you know, there’s so many different aspects to financial I know we’ve just had some two really tough segments talking about abuse and we talked about, you know, how families can be good advocates with Peter before. So I really want to talk a little bit about, you know, your role as a placement adviser. One of the things you talked with families about is how are you going to pay for it? Yes, big topic. It’s a big topic and it’s overwhelming because generally, until you cross into this world of needing to find options for care and housing for your elders, it’s something you don’t think about right or it’s been in the back burner and there are options. I have been doing this job for eighteen years and serving in the Tri County area here and no one has been living under the viaduct ever. No, not, ever. No. So finances can always get worked out. So I want to give everyone a sense of hope about that. Don’t be afraid to talk about it. Be Straightforward with your advisor that you’re working with, which I totally encourage you to do, so that you get good, objective information, and that is to just have a broad perspective. So it might be on a private bait pay basis that you can pay for things, and what that means is is that the estate of your loved ones can pay for their care and housing, and ideally we’d like to always be able to say until the end of life. Right. Rarely does that happen anymore. Exact cost of CARE is very high. Everyone has sticker shock. Don’t let it stop you. You know, I saw a statistic ones you’re talking about that it says forty five percent of seniors that are in some level of care are on Medicaid. Yeah, I totally totally believe that. You may not start out as Medicaid and right. That brings us to that Medicaid option. One thing that I and this is just Daphne from pinnacles senior placement, saying, please have a plan that allows you to have at least some months of private pay before you use the insurance from the state, so that you have more options. And that’s something that’s not always talked about. Sometimes you might get information that says the terms. You have a spend down period of time, right, and everybody does, and that’s a good thing to do. But be prudent about how you do it and they can you know that that spend down is used for your care. So when you say the term spend down, that’s a commonly used phrase in our industry. Yes, okay. What does that mean to our listeners? So to our lists, that let’s just use easy numbers, not they’re not any reality. Bring just easy numbers. Let’s say that someone has twentyzeros of assets, liquid assets. There’s money in the bank, will make really easy money in the bank, and you have an income, your loved one has an income of about, oh, eighteen to nineteen hundred dollars a month in the state of Washington. This changes for every state, but in the state of Washington. Generally you need to have two thousand dollars or less to your name at any one time to be able to qualify for Medicaid. That’s a general statement. There are exceptions to that rule. So I’m not the expert from the state, right, but generally just use that as a benchmark and there. So that allowed to have money set upside for their funeral. Yes, yes, so that’s all kinds of things. There’s all kinds of things that go into this, but that spend down, just to focus on spend down. That’s that Twentyzero dollars that needs to be spent before you qualify for Medicaid, right, and so that’s the spend down. Is that Twentyzero? Now you now what it be. Eighteen thousand of that because you’ve got two thousand left in the bank, or what would that? You need to have zero. You cannot, at any the letter of the law is ever have more than two thousand dollars to your name. Again, there are exceptions, so don’t get super, super nervous. You need to talk to some professionals about your given situation. She’s are just general statements, but the spend down is that twentyzero spend down. My personal feeling from eighteen years of experience is that that money should be used in a care facility right so that you can buy into that facility. It’s not literally ownership, but most buildings, whether it’s a small adult family home or a large memory care or assisted living, most of them have a time period that you need to be able to pay privately, and that means from your estate. So that Twentyzero allows you to pay privately. Now let’s use an easy number. Let’s just say five thousand dollars a month is the care. Just for me, easy four months of care. So at that point you have four months that I can go to a community and say I have four months of private pay in the bank. I still have about, you know, the eighteen hundred dollars a month that pays for my bills and whatnot. So we figure all out the bills and how much of that money from your income can be used toward the actual four thousand dollars a month. Uh Huh, gets a little complicated, sure, but nonetheless use that spend down. That’s the definition we’re trying to get to. The spend down is using that money to be able to get into a community where they require private pay first. And you know, Jeff and we’re talking about that extreme. But the average senior may have sold a home. They may have my mother had about three Hundredzero cash assets. After she paid all our bills and paid back a reverse mortgage. She had three three hundred thousand dollars. Now to me as a family member, I was thinking in my head, which I was way off, but I was thinking in my head, oh, that’s plenty of money for her to live on till the rest is, for the rest of her life. It wasn’t. And that’s the reality with what as we as families here in in, you know, western Washington, need to take a look at. You know, what is most important? You know, first of all, is care. Right, my mother did not have a long term care insurance policy. If she would have anything that was actually assisted living basis, you know, the services, it would have helped supplement the cost of that care. So that’s something to take a look at. So I know that those are scenarios, for sure. Daphne, absolutely, you know, this is such a broad subject matter and there’s so many details that go into it. Just staying on the Medicaid side your mom having the three hundred. will use that as an example. I believe, and this is again just me, but generally have a broad brush that says if I have sixtyzero dollars a year to pay for care, I I have some options. Now that’s not taken us out. How I’ve years worth. Were it. It could be. But I also think it’s at that time that you should talk to a financial planner, you should talk to somebody in elder law, attorney that says, okay, I want to make sure that I have at least two years of private pay, because in our community here in western Washington, that’s a good benchmark to use to dry able to have options of care and housing. Is Two years of private pay. It’s not hard and fast. There are some that, you know I ever convert to Medicaid. There’s some that will convert to Medicaid Month one. But I want to give you just broad brush things to take away some of the mystery. So we are talking to Daphne Davis from pinnacles senior placements and dephinitely you do amazing things for families and helping them find care options. What areas do you sir? Well, I’m excited to tell you that we serve solidly, with solid support from snahomash county down to Thurston County. We are just having so much I know abouts now. Yeah, I am very excited today able to say solidly it’s there’s a number of people that are working with pinnacle right now who have the same philosophy of doing the right thing for the right reason, and so we’re all over in our western Washington well, and I referred Sheryld to you and I I have always been so impressed with her and I’m thrilled the onbelief that she is part of your team, because if he’s, she’s awesome. Yeah, I can I can see that already it for me. I just want to say to all of our listeners thank you so much for calling us, for letting pinnacle be a part of your life and trusting us to help you through a really hard time of making decisions. Well, you’ve kind of been a mainstay here because there’s a lot of our listeners that know you and so often I will say on the show, and then I’ll just even mentioned Daphne. Oh, I’ve heard her on the show. She’s wonderful and so you know talking to the listeners now, it’s like, you know, one of the things that I know we always say it every time, but I really want to say it. We’re talking about financial well, it costs nothing for families to use pinnacle, to pick up the phone and call all panicle senior placements to say, you know, I’m concerned about care options and you know I’m in the last month I think I’ve sent you what two or three people because it is such a valuable you know, she is your greatest asset when it comes to trying to figure out, you know, what the right step is for mom or dad and you not necessarily. No, necessarily, it may not happen today, but to have somebody like Daphne that you know, maybe that move doesn’t happen for another year or six months, it’s okay, that’s right. Gather information so that you are informed. The biggest thing that I want to give to you, to my family, so that I help, is to have information. I function as an information post. It may not be now that you need to make a change, but you know that something’s going on with health or cognition or quality of life or our stress levels are getting high, call us and say am I thinking in the right direction and there’s no pressure, there’s this is your journey and I’m getting invited Pinnacles, getting invited into your journey to help you so that you can make informed decisions, versus me getting the phone call that says, where were you six months ago when I started thinking about this and I made the wrong decision. You know, I thought this is what was right, but gathering information is all that it’s about when you call pinnacle, and that’s the key. And so you know. So just as a rule, I guess in closing, how to Fund Long Term Care? There is many different types. And getting back to funding, one of the things that Daphne just said is in her eighteen years of experience there’s not a single senior that has to live under the viaduct, not in my world. Yeah. So the idea is is remember this, that there’s always a place for your loved one if you reach out and you called Daphne. Yeah, definitely. How do we reach to? Will you reach me at eight, fifty five, seven, three, four, fifteen hundred? You can also go to our website of pinnacles senior placements with an s at the endcom and you guys obviously serve all of some homish king and Pierce and Thurston, yes, counties, and at how in KITSAP as. Yeah, we go out to kitsap I’ve been in Jefferson County and I know you know. Did you discatchet for me? Yep, I’ve done that. We’re all over. Yeah, been up to orksyling. Let me go to Orcas island to get Oh, when we all love to get at. Yeah, definitely. It is so great to have you on the program today. Well, thank you again for being with us. You are so welcome. The preceding podcast was provided by pinnacles senior placements LLC and answers for elders radio. To contact pinnacles senior placements, go to Pinnacle Senior Placementscom.