Retirement Living vs. Independent Assisted Living with Kelley Smith
Housing is a daunting aspect for senior living. Kelley Smith at CarePartners Living talks about the differences between retirement living and independent assisted living.
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*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 care partners living and answers for elders radio, and welcome everyone to answers for elders radio. And I am here with the wonderful Kelly Smith from care partners living, which, by the way, you’ve been the best of the business this this month. I kilfee, which is amazing. They Ah, thank you so much. We are so excited again with our partnership with care partners and you know, I also Kelly. I want to say before we get into this topic, I just got the opportunity to spend time with you and at the Washingtam Home Care Association and to see the standard that our providers are kept to and your support of our home care industry has been phenomenal. Thank you. So I really want to say thank you to you. You’re so very welcome. I honestly believe that, even though, for a living, what I do is very different than home care, I think people are really better off in their homes if they can stay there. That’s what’s best for them. HMM. I think you know, and that’s leading into this first segment that we want to talk about. I’ve asked Kelly. Thank you for being so gracious to be here with us for the entire hour today, because I want to talk about as we wrap up this month talking about senior living. It’s perfect that we end on this high note with care partners, because you guys really support all phases of the transition of these living you know situations, and I always talk about sometimes. I think for families housing is probably one of the most daunting pieces of senior care. People don’t know the difference of it, they don’t know the terminology, they don’t know how to pick the right community for them and it is as unique of decision as we are as individuals, and I think that’s really important. So, you know what I’d love to do today, Kelly is Tart, talk about, initially, the difference between when people talk about independent living and they talk about retirement living. Sure people think it’s the same thing. They do and it’s because this is again, what are we really trying to do? We’re trying to educate people. R I always say I’m an army of for bear and then let you go do your things. At least you know what questions to ask retirement living. When people say retirement apartments, retirement seniors, you know complexes. What we’re looking at is over fifty five, which means there’s no children, no teenagers live in there. The cost is usually quite a bit less. You can get some of those, those apartments, of good size apartments, absolutely twelve hundred bucks, you know, pretty reasonable for two people. There’s not usually a second person fee. They might have a dining area. That’s for special occasions, but usually you cook in your own room. They might have housekeeping, they might have activities, but there’s not. There’s no care involved. If you’ve got an alley and you want a nurse to look at it, there’s nobody there to get to pick up the phone. Exactly right. And I think the thing that’s really unique about something like this, and this is something you know, we have a lot of over fifty five communities in this area, which I think is amazing. There’s some that actually will progress onto into more, but yeah, we might have some wonderful CCRC’s which right that continuing care, you know, communities and and those those are extremely valuable if you can, if you can afford them, or you can actually purchase a home like providence point in it’s fun. As an example, we go where you could purchase a home in and over fifty five community and you invest in that area and it is, you know, it kind of centered around, you know, culture exactly, and say, but you know, one of the things I think is really interesting about the options and and that people have is, you know, this whole idea of over fifty five. I don’t think we talk enough about it because I think a lot of times, you know, when you’re at that age, fifty five, sixty, sixty five, you’re not looking at you know, needing your have provide, you know, live in a big house anymore. A lot of times your kids are gone, you know, they’re married or grown up or, you know, moved away or whatever. And so many times seniors will be alone in a big house that’s too big for them that they have to you know, they have to take care of property taxes and some cases are through the ceiling. Yep, and if you’re in a fixed income, it’s probably time to start making a change. Yeah, I agree. So tell me what that process is like? Well, the process is simple. The first thing I tell people is make sure that you go take a look at a couple of different places. Don’t settle on the first one you look at. But find out what is really included. Okay. Is there options for you to truly age in place? Is that something you’re worried about? Do you have a family history of, you know, hip surgery? Right, you know, are you gonna you worried that you might develop dementia down the road? We hope not, but let’s take a look at what are you what are you concerned about long term, not just a fix for today? Very good point, and I think a lot of decisions sometimes are made on today. Yeah, there there’s not. There’s not a lot of foresight of Gee, you know. Well, I have some you know, I have arthritis, perfect example. Yeah, I have arthritis. So I sit there and I think, well, I define with my house. Well, the next house I live in. I don’t want a house with stairs. Yeah, I don’t want to have you know, I love my gardening, but I’m going to make sure that I have raised beds right, and those are things that, if I think about them now, when I’m in my early S, that’s one thing. When we get to, you know, ten years from now, if I don’t start being, you know, thoughtful now, where am I going to be? Then? It’s going to be I’m going to make another change. Now, you see, and this is what we want to really advise people, if you’re in your s and you’re really healthy, right, but the truth is the yards getting to be overwhelming. There’s other things you wanted to do in your retirement age and it’s not taken care of that house all the time, then maybe an over fifty five community might be exactly what you need. Sir. You gotta you know history of longevity and your family. That might be the right way to go because you’re going to spend less money and you’re going to have a little more freedom. Okay, you have to remember to the less care you need, the bigger your environment. Okay, so that’s something to keep in mind. You’re living at home. You could be in a two to three Thousand Square Foot House, depending on where you sare. Okay, you got to remember too. Now you go into retirement and now you’re looking at, you know, maybe eighteen hundred square feet assisted living. Now you’re down to about seven fifty, five, hundred and fifty, and that’s interesting that you say. It’s okay, we’re going to talk about that in this hour of two different types. Yeah, and we are talking again to Kelly Smith and Kelly is the vice president of marketing for care partners living and you guys are amazing. Thank you. Tell us a little bit about your concept. You have how many communities right right now? Right now we have twelve and we have three in the hopper. That’s amazing and people always ask me how do you guys do that and work with Medicaid? Well, number of things. You got to be smart about your money and the way you handle it, and we guarantee every single resident in every single one of our buildings can take their savings spend down, you know, so they spend it all down to where they could qualify for Medicaid in a few years and they stay with us and that’s perfect. Yeah, and that’s it. That’s one thing seniors don’t need to have hanging over the head. I hate it when you hear somebody say, well, I hope I don’t allow outlive my savings. Oh honey, somebody loves you and hopes you outlive it for a long time. And here’s the thing. People families may not think of that. Yeah, but for a daughter that WHO’s my my mother, man out of money and she had to go on Medicaid. She had to move. Yeah, see, and I hate that. And now they were their friends. It was horrible and everybody knows their business. It’s almost being shamed. And the other thing was, which was really bad, was she had to get used to new caregivers. That’s rightested living. She had to and and she had grown attached to that little apartment that she was living in and it was a huge stress on her, so to you know, and I always found that just so there was a part of me that just my heart was just, you know, I felt that it was cruel to my mom, and yet I blamed myself as her daughter, that I should have asked the right questions or I never would have moved her in there to begin with. But you didn’t know, I didn’t know, and that’s why we’re here today, and this is why you spend the time that you do with this wonderful radio station educating families because of what you’ve learned, and I think that’s wonderful right. So, in in it, you guys do do independent living. You busly on it on a concept. Tell us a little bit of bad care partners and how you serve seniors that are independent. Well, when you’re independent, what a lot of times people don’t understand is when you’re independent, that doesn’t mean you don’t need something. Right. Okay, you’re not going to spend thirty five hundred dollars on an apartment because you need nothing right, right, right, but what you do have is twenty four hour a day, three shift caregivers. You have a nurse on duty, usually seven days a week. There’s an on call ur end. It’s available. If there was an emergency and you’re an independent resident, they’re not going to ignore you. Right, you need that nurse for something you can actually pay per dim if that’s the right word, where you don’t have to go on services for maybe a short time, like if you have the flu or you say any or you know you’re just not feeling good. If you’re ever lived alone, you get, you know, like your a little skin problem on your back that’s kind of hard to reach. That you know you got people around them there to help you. Doesn’t mean you become something else, right. But you also don’t change apartments as you need assisted living. Right. But there’s a reason people pay those fees and a lot of times what they do is, when they’re independent, they move in being able to come and go as they please or not on any services. Nobody’s watching them constantly. Right, paying attention to him, of course, but then you can reveals your apartment or you can go downstairs and have a mail. You can in most places, but you got to remember to your environment get smaller. So you’re an an independent. Those rooms are licensed for assisted and independent, which means you go on services, you don’t have to move. That’s wonderful and that’s a great way to do it. So the idea is to come into either, you know if you’re going to be in like a retirement or over fifty five, it’s a little bit different. But when we’re talking about the first step to going into a, you know, independent living and into retirement living in more of a con I want, you don’t want to use the word control, but more of a caret for environment. Yeah, the independent is such a great way because you get an opportunity to really ingratiate yourself while you still have, you know, all your functionality and your mobility exactly. You get a chance to learn that staff, have the nurse get to know you right, you know, make friends and and still have the independence of popping on that bus and going downtown and doing the things that they do. If you don’t feel like driving, you’re treated just like everybody else. The only differences you’re not on services were somebody’s coming into your apartment to help you with things, your activities of daily living throughout the day. That’s amazing and you know, I just really want to emphasize to our listeners today that care partners has communities. All the way south is lacy and all the way north is Everett, right here bill and Mary’Sville. That’s right, I forgot about that. So and and I love the fact that you guys are there for seniors and especially the fact that you can live there forever. So coming up next, caret Kelly’s going to be here and we’re going to talk a little bit more about assisted living and what does that mean talk to using thank you. The preceding podcast was provided by care partners living and answers for elders radio. To contact care partners living, go to care partners livingcom.
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Originally published May 25, 2019