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Welcome to Healthcare Redefined: Advocating for Aging Adults and Their Families, where we empower families to navigate the complexities of aging and healthcare. Presented by Your Nurse Advocate Consulting, we share real stories, expert advice, and practical tools to help you and your loved ones confidently navigate aging with dignity.
We explore topics like creating collaborative care plans, demystifying Medicare, handling healthcare crises, and preparing for the future. Join us as we transform uncertainty into understanding.
Pam: [00:00:00] Well, welcome back to Healthcare Redefined, advocating for aging adults and their families. We're really excited to kick off season two, and with a topic that so many families know they need to address, but often put it off until a crisis happens. And so I just want to mention too to conclude our first season, don't forget to listen to the first episode of this new season two, as Lynne and I will wrap up the discharge process.
Linda: [00:00:24] That's right. This season, we're really going to be diving into one of the most important parts of caregiving and aging well, and that's getting your affairs in order. People don't really realize how important that is, because they usually don't think about this until something bad happens. So these are the conversations that can bring peace of mind, reduce the stress, and help families make thoughtful decisions before urgent situations arise.
Pam: [00:00:49] Today we're focusing on financial planning for aging adults, including the role of preparation, family priorities, and general education around long term care insurance. So make sure to grab the show notes for this episode's details as well as resources.
Linda: [00:01:04] Dave believes that every financial conversation should start with you, your life, your family, your priorities, and your goals. As a certified financial planner professional, he works with clients to define the scope, detail, and level of service they want before they decide how to move forward.
Pam: [00:01:23] Dave's mission is really simple as well as powerful, and that's to help clients avoid financial regret by being the catalyst that helps them make progress towards their financial goals.
Linda: [00:01:33] So Dave, welcome to Healthcare Redefined. We're so glad you're here.
Pam: [00:01:38] Welcome, Dave. And Dave wanted to share a little bit about yourself and your background.
Dave: [00:01:43] Yeah, sure. So I'm a proud graduate. I'm a Ripon Red Hawk. So Ripon, Wisconsin let's go Red Hawks.I played tennis there. If there's any tennis players out there and I studied math. I majored in mathematics. I had an accounting, economics and computer science minor as well. So originally the plan 25 years ago, I wanted to be an actuary. So that was the original game plan around career. Long story short, I ended up not going down that path. I started out in 2008, started out in corporate. So actually it was a computer programmer, did some development with software. I found out probably a year or two, I don't think I want to do this for 40 years, and ended up getting into insurance product development. And then my wife and I, we had my daughter who's 12 now, we had a young child. We started working with an advisor ourselves. And through multiple conversations, I, you know, like, hey, this is kind of a neat career. Can you talk to me more about what it's like to be an advisor? And then, long story short, about a decade ago, after spending ten years on the corporate side, said, hey, I think I could do this and be doing this now for about a decade as an advisor. So I'm a certified financial planner. So that just means that we are held to a what's called a fiduciary standard of care. A lot of the industry is slightly lower. It's more of a best interest standard of care. So fiduciary just means that we need to solely place client needs above our own needs so that a lot of clients are looking for that. But just making sure that an advisor is doing what's right and what's best in the client's best interest.
Pam: [00:03:11] Awesome. So Dave, why do you believe financial planning conversations should begin with, say, a person's life or their family, priorities and goals? How do you go about trying to figure out what's best for them?
Dave: [00:03:23] Yeah. So ultimately, I always like to think about context. We always try to put something into context before we talk numbers. So, money, it supports goals. So we typically start conversations around what actually matters. So just as a few examples, if we're talking to someone in their 60s or 70s that's starting to think about maybe their own care someday, is it important for them? Do they want to remain independent and maybe stay in their home? That might be important to them, but not critical for another person? Is it a priority? Is it something that's important to leave a legacy? Do they want to leave money to their kids, to their grandkids? Are their charities, organizations that are really, really important? Do they want to be traveling the world? Is that a goal? Are we going to go to Europe? Are we going to be staying in the US? And then again, just like having some mechanisms in place, how are we going to actually fund this stuff? God forbid something happens. How are we going to pay for our care? It is just having a bucket of money aligned to specific needs and goals. But again, it's all individualized. What's important to person A is going to be irrelevant for person B. So we really want to make sure that it's tailored and we're giving individualized advice. So again, when we do goal first planning, that's yielding a little bit more tailored plans as opposed to kind of like a cookie cutter, just kind of grab it off the shelf, you've got option A, B, and C. And again, like as another example. So if, if being independent, if that's a really, really high priority, if that's maybe number one, we might want to make sure a portion of our assets are set aside and we have a plan for in-home care that might be much more prioritized over, for example, an institutionalized care setting, a skilled nursing facility, as an example.
Pam: [00:05:01] Gotcha. So is it possible, Dave, to share maybe what might be some of the biggest financial mistakes families can make when they wait too long to plan?
Dave: [00:05:13] Yeah. I mean, I think number one, and unfortunately, this is a lot of people plan by default. It's kind of just like, let's wait to see what happens, what ends up happening when we do planning reactively, a lot of the solutioning, we're kind of pigeonholed into a corner. You know, there are not a lot of options. So a lot of rush decisions are happening, which can be costly, an emergency move, like for example, if there's a piece of real estate that needs to be sold, we need to sell it quickly in weeks, not months or years. So then, we're taking a haircut at 20, 25% to get the thing sold quickly. Expensive care placements would be another example. So again, when we're reactive, we're just rushing. We don't have all these solutions. Another issue we see is if we wait until a health change happens, a lot of the insurance options are off the table. Long term care insurance might be really expensive or it might not even be an option at all. So again, when we're proactive, that's less of an issue. This unfortunately happens a lot. I've seen it with clients' family conflicts. So three adult kids as an example, mom, mom or dad is in their 80s and needs some care. Kids are in their 40s, they're confused. Who's going to be the decision maker? There can be a lot of conflict. It can destroy families. Unfortunately, there's stress. There's legal issues that come up. Taxes, right. So, tax smart strategies as an example. Roth conversions, Irma, Medicare surcharge avoidance. That's an issue. But again, if we're just reacting with inherited qualified dollars as an example, again, we're missing opportunities. So it's just trying to be proactive, not being reactive about this stuff. And again, if an adult child wants to be doing this, it's offering help. It's making sure that mom and dad have a good plan as an example.
Pam: [00:07:03] Thanks, Dave. Linda, back to you.
Linda: [00:07:06] Yeah. So Dave, that really leads us into this next section that we want to discuss, which is about organization, because it seems to me that organization is a gift to both the aging adult and their families, based on exactly what you were just talking about in regards to conflict and reactive measures versus proactive. So I'd really like to explore the topic of what it means to you or to a financial planner. When you talk about or hear the phrase 'getting your affairs in order'. When somebody comes to you and says, I want to get my affairs in order. What does that mean from a financial planning standpoint?
Dave: [00:07:45] Sure. Yeah. I mean, number one, it accessibility of documents, of information. So this would be there might be accounts that someone in their 80s or 90s, the adult kids in their 40s and 50s don't even know the account exists. So it's making sure there's an inventory that's up. No, don't put all this stuff on a sheet of paper, you know, sitting out in the dining room table, have some security around this ideally electronic security safe deposit box. But we want that information to be accessible if that person becomes incapacitated or passes away. So what are the accounts, investment accounts, insurance policies, passwords. How do we actually get into them. Clear list of contacts, so their estate attorneys information, their wealth advisors information. We want all that laid out, proactively again, similar theme here. We don't want to have to be scrambling and trying to find all that stuff, document readiness. So like legal documents, the POAs they're up to date, health care directives, wills, trust. We have those in place and they're not 25 or 30 years old. They've been updated. They've been reviewed. There's some intentionality there. And again, like getting our affairs in order. Again, it's having enough liquidity, in a state that has no liquid assets is very, very tough. Again, you're selling stuff quickly because you need the assets to pay estate debts. There's lines of credit. There's cash in the estate, you know, near term for emergencies. And then again, there's going to there might be some bills from a skilled nursing facility from assisted living. We have the the means to actually pay for all of those issues. So again, we've got liquidity. Money's accessible when we need it.
Linda: [00:09:21] That's a really good point because both Pam and I have dealt with those very same issues and dealing with some of our clients. The children have no idea what their parent's accounts are, where they're at, or even how to access them. And a lot of times they, if they even tried to access the banks or the investments, well, you're not on their list. You don't have the right to have access to this. So even just being able to get access to some of these things takes time. So what in your field, in your expertise, what essential core documents or plans should an aging adult in their family make sure that they have in place early on, like the earlier the better?
Dave: [00:10:04] Yeah. And again, needs can change. Like just because it's in place doesn't mean it can't be changed. Like it's not locked in stone forever. But yeah, we really like to see financial power of attorney, health care proxy, advanced directive, get those things in place, don't have your plan, go through the default of your state. If it goes through state intestacy laws, that means you didn't have a valid will. So have a will. Like what? The default, what the state says by default. That might work for some people, but it might be totally the opposite of what someone wanted. There might be a child we don't want money to have any decision making or assets to go to. So again, intentionality. And then again, a trust, a trust, you can protect assets from creditors, from an irresponsible adult child, maybe spending the money in a way you did not want. So wills and trusts and this is really important. It's very easy. We have clients that have beneficiary designations that are, you know, when we stumble upon them, you know, they haven't been touched in 20 years. They've gotten married. They've gotten divorced multiple times since then.
Dave: [00:11:02] So beneficiaries are correct on their investment accounts, retirement accounts, life insurance like those have been updated according to today's needs, and again, like here's a key one. Digital access to information. Like there's digital things that when you pass away or you're capacitated, I think to your point earlier, no one has access to that. So you can have a digital account viewing agreement, you could have a trusted contact on some of those accounts. You're giving permission to a trusted family member or friend to actually access your stuff if you can't or don't have the ability to. And again, having a long. Having some kind of plan for long term care. How are we going to fund this stuff if we, God forbid, need it? What's our preferred providers again? Contacts, who are people we have relationships with already? So I would say that was a very long winded answer. But having that stuff in place, we rarely do, we see all those things done when we're talking to someone for the first time. But yeah, that would be an A plus if we've got all those boxes checked.
Pam: [00:12:01] Linda, I know you have another question that you'd like to ask, but I just feel strongly about inserting here. Just an example of what Dave's talking about. I currently have a client in the nursing home. She fell, she fractured her femur. She was at work. But I mean, she's elderly. And there it is not a qualified worker's comp situation. And so she's non-weight bearing. So now she's in a situation where Medicare is going to deny her stay, her ongoing therapy because she's non weight bearing. So now she's at a private pay responsibility with the nursing home. And by the time she is weight bearing and can transition to more therapy and getting home, I mean that could cost her about $7,000 in the short amount of time. So she has nothing, you know, nothing to protect that. That's going to have to come out of her pocket.
Linda: [00:13:02] So I mean, these things are really important. And I think it's planning for the unexpected. If I can just kind of summarize that, it's all that. So Dave, how can families start these conversations with you without making a parent or a loved one feel overwhelmed or defensive, especially if the adult children are with the parents when they're meeting with you. I mean, how do these conversations start? Because I can tell you, I've had a couple clients that they basically shut down when their kids started talking to them about making arrangements and making plans. And they felt that their children didn't have the right to know these things.
Dave: [00:13:42] Yeah. And these are tough conversations. A lot of times, you know, there's, it's a very emotional conversation. So we always recommend lead with values. So like mom, dad, what matters most to you? Hey, can we really quickly ask, would you mind if we spent 30 minutes this weekend, finding out where your documents are, using 'we' language. 'We' want to make this easier for you, not 'I' want to make this easier for you. And sometimes it can help like, again, even when you're trying to do this, you're doing the right thing. You're trying to come from a place of love on this. It can be challenging. So bringing in a neutral third party and advisor, maybe a nurse advocate, I know some, some good people that can do that type of stuff, especially if emotions are running high, it can really, really help to bring in that neutral third party as the arbiter, if you will.
Linda: [00:14:31] Well, thank you, Dave, for that. So, Pam, I'm giving it back to you.
Pam: [00:14:35] Alright, so Dave, we want to focus a little bit about just some practical first steps for our listeners and how to keep the conversation simple and approachable and help our listeners understand that planning doesn't have to happen all at once. So for someone listening today, who knows they need to get started, what are the first 2 or 3 steps that you might recommend?
Dave: [00:14:57] Yeah, I would say because like a lot of times that's step one. A lot of times things are very disjointed, they're across ten different firms. You know, you've got some paper stuff, you've got some electronic access, but it's not all in one place. Number one, it's helpful just to, it does take several hours of time investment, but try to get an inventory, create a one pager, an inventory, all the accounts and contacts, the insurance, the investments, the locations, if you've got five safe deposit box at five banks, where is all this stuff? Try to get that in one centralized place again, ideally electronically, because a one page sheet of paper can very easily get lost. So we want that stored in the digital ecosystem somewhere. Again, number two, maybe look at those beneficiaries, especially if it's been a while since those have been updated, particularly if a divorce has happened, that would be a really common instance where we want to make sure those are corrected. And then schedule a 30 minute conversation, whoever your trusted advisor is. It might be the financial person, it might be the wealth advisor. It might be the estate attorney, whoever that trusted advisor is, have a conversation with them and prioritize what's actually important and get some next actions. Again, there's 20 or 30 things you might have to do. Start with the top one, two, and three. And then, get an action plan, a schedule for when you're going to be implementing stuff.
Pam: [00:16:19] You know, this comes up a lot with Linda and I and working with our clients, oftentimes we're hired by the adult children unbeknownst to the aging adult. And so sometimes they have to break the news to them that, yeah, we'd like to have this advocate work with you. So losing independence is such a big issue with our aging adults. So how can the adult children support their aging parents in organizing their financial information, but without giving the impression that they're trying to take over?
Linda: [00:16:49] Yeah. And again, I think to the, to my earlier point, it's all about offering help, not control like, hey, can I help you make a list or can I help you label these files? You're just offering to step in and provide some assistance, ask for permission. Hey, could I actually access these specific documents? These agreements have boundaries about what you are and are not going to do, a shared folder. It might be, if mom and dad are not very financially savvy or, excuse me, electronically savvy, maybe offer to digitize some of their paper folders and just check in, don't, if they say no the first time, that shouldn't be the end of the conversation. Check in, don't be harassing them, berating them three times a day. But yeah, check in, don't be annoying, but be persistent in a polite manner. Politely persistent is what I like to say.
Pam: [00:17:40] No, thank you for that. And last, the last question I have on this section, Dave, is are there any of these we were talking about organizing all these documents and figuring out the beneficiaries and all this. So is there anything in particular that families should gather in one place so they're better prepared in case of an emergency?
Linda: [00:17:58] Yeah. And again, I probably touched on a little bit, but again, account numbers, like just the fact that you have an account at X, Y, Z company might not be sufficient. You might actually need to know the account number. What are the insurance policies, the life insurance, the long term care insurance. Again, we're not necessarily going to know these exist unless the adult kids are informed. The contact info for the firm or the individual advisor, the estate attorney, the doctor's information, their names, their phone numbers. Where are the legal documents? So you know, where is that located? Is it in the safe? Is it actually accessible? Can someone get to it when they need it easily? Medical history medications that might not be known by the adult kids. And then again in emergency contact list phone numbers, relationships. How do you know these people? Is this a good friend of yours? Is this your child? We want that all centralized. Again, simplicity is key here. When you have 50 different things, we lose track of that. If you've got 1 or 2 things, it's a lot easier. So we actually suggest for our clients that have done this stuff that have created their legal documents, we'll actually, on the wealth management side, we'll keep a copy of their estate documents on file as well. So like if we had an adult child that reached out, we have those documents typically on hand as well as the estate attorney.
Pam: [00:19:15] Thank you. Linda, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to you.
Linda: [00:19:18] Yeah. So Dave, you had mentioned something earlier and again just recently regarding long term care insurance. So I'd like to delve into a little bit about long term care insurance. And again, for the audience, this is general education only. We are not providing financial advice. But I think it's important that our listeners understand about long term care insurance, and the purpose of it and the timing of it. So, Dave, can you give us a general overview of what long term care insurance is and what it may help to cover?
Linda: [00:19:57] Sure. You bet. So long term care insurance, it's essentially insurance that is intended to help pay for daily care needs. So as examples of this, it would be in-home help. So there might be a home health aide that comes out to help with some things around the house, help with some basic needs around the house. Assisted living would be a little more intensive. And then a full fledged skilled nursing facility. But these are, it's not something, an acute medical condition, you're recovering from that long term care. It's chronic. We're not going to ever fully heal from that issue. So the insurance is intended to pay for those needs. Policies have certainly evolved over the years. Many of the older policies had daily limits. They're typically now monthly limits. And then there's something if you think about like car insurance, it has a dollar deductible. Long term care insurance has a time deductible. So a period of time has to elapse from needing care before the insurance kicks in. There's max benefit periods. Some policies have inflation riders. But the caveat here, like coverage options vary widely.
Dave: [00:21:01] Very important. Read a policy, understand what triggers for benefits. But in a nutshell, there are two main triggers for how someone can actually have a policy connection and receive benefits. So number one would be a physical trigger. So there are six what are called activities of daily living. So if anyone's familiar with that, eating, bathing, dressing, transferring, toileting and continence. So we could go into depth defining those. But those are the six. So if someone needs help on a daily basis with at least two out of six of those ADLs. So it doesn't matter which two, but at least two, it could be more than two, but at least two, that's a triggering event. And then there's also a cognitive trigger. So if someone were to, for example Alzheimer's dementia. If that is severe cognitive impairment it would be hazardous for them to be by themselves for an extended period of time. Most policies would typically trigger. So physical trigger the ADLs or the cognitive trigger. So again policies can vary a little bit. But that would be in a nutshell kind of the overarching theme of most policies.
Pam: [00:22:07] That's quite interesting. I didn't know some of that stuff. So when is the best time for someone to start learning about long term care insurance options or purchasing them?
Dave: [00:22:19] Yeah. I mean, so the general theme of this stuff would be you have to get it before you need it, right? So I'm going to go back to like homeowners insurance is a good example. You can't buy a homeowner's insurance policy after your house is on fire. Right. That's too late. The policy says you're not eligible for coverage anymore. Long term care insurance would be very, very similar. So if that's an option that someone is considering, we have to get it while we're healthy enough, which is, you don't need the coverage yet, you're not going to be going on claim tomorrow. But then the challenge is if you do that too soon, you're paying premiums for decades, way too early. So general, again, generalities here, sooner rather than later. Our suggestion is to start thinking about it in the late 40s. So start researching, inquiring about it. If someone decides, hey, this is right for me, I want to get a policy. We typically want to do that in our 50s. The approval rates for insurance. It's more like 80 to 90% in our 40s and 50s. Once someone gets into their 60s and 70s, it starts dropping. The approval rate starts to be 50% or less in many cases. So you want the sweet spot generally, late 40s to late 50s somewhere in there. But again, it can vary. And yeah, health underwriting is a little easier when we're younger and it's a little cheaper.
Dave: [00:23:37] So is the oh, so it is a lot. The cost increases as you get older for this type of insurance, correct?
Linda: [00:23:44] Correct. Yeah. So it's based on age, it's based on gender. And then there can be ratings based on other medical conditions. But then what I commonly see is that people that get approved at best rates or they just get declined entirely. Occasionally there can be a small rating, but it's usually you have it or you don't get it. It's what I'm seeing typically.
Dave: [00:24:03] So what are some of the common misconceptions families can have about long term care insurance? There's misconceptions about a lot of things out there, including hospice and home health. There are misconceptions about having long term care insurance. So what are some of the things that you've run into in regards to this?
Dave: [00:24:23] I would say by far the number one is that Medicare, Medicaid, I mean, there's common terms here. So Medicare, not Medicaid, Medicare, all that's going to pay for my long term care. It generally does not pay for custodial care. Right. There's the hundred day thing where you can pay for a very temporary care. But if we're going to be receiving care for years and years, Medicare is not paying for that. Another good one is, I can always get it later, which is true if we're healthy. If we're a retiree that's running marathons, excellent health, no issues. Sure we can. That's an option. One doctor's visit, one medical test, one health change. That's in our medical records. In many cases, that can make us ineligible and that can happen relatively quickly. We were in perfect health. We got a phone call from the doctor. Hey, your test came in. I want you to come in and talk about it. Right. That can change very quickly. So we see that. And then I would say number three, it's too expensive. It's unaffordable. Some of that is true. Like the pricing has certainly gone up over the last 15, 20 years since I've been in the industry. But there's also a lot of product variations, there's hybrid planning, there's phased approaches. So yes and no. But it's best just to do the research, get educated proactively.
Dave: [00:25:40] So in saying that, how does long term care planning and insurance fit into a larger financial plan for someone who is aging?
Linda: [00:25:51] Yeah, I mean, I would think about it like, you know, legs on a stool. So it's certainly long term care planning. That would be one of the components, one of the legs of the stool. So, financial liquidity, insurance planning, legal planning, legal documents and care coordination, those are the four pieces that complete the full picture for playing around aging and again, like having insurance self-funding Medicaid spend on planning, it's key. We need a proactive plan in place. We need to be thinking about this because this is going to really, really impact retirement, cashflow, estate planning, risk management overall, we really, really want to attack this on a proactive basis.
Linda: [00:26:32] Wow. Great information. Dave. Really great information. Pam, I'm going to take send it over to you.
Pam: [00:26:37] Alright. Well, you know, Dave, for this part of the conversation, I want to just bring it back a little bit to the emotional realities that families do face. And the fact that financial planning is not only one of those dot the i's and cross the T's, but it's also about reducing stress and preserving dignity. I want our listeners to feel a little bit encouraged. They may be feeling after, oh my gosh, we haven't done this yet or we haven't done that or, you know, in your experience, how does financial planning help families really reduce stress during health challenges or changes or in care transitions?
Linda: [00:27:15] Sure. I have a couple client stories I'll briefly share at the end here. But yeah, for me, proactive financial planning, it's just, it's removing that ambiguity. So like we have clearly defined roles. We know who's doing what when they're doing it. We have funding set up. So whether that's insurance, a pot of money set aside, we have liquidity, the plan is providing a funding mechanism. And again, like I talked earlier about it, but yeah, the last minute scrambling. Yeah, there's going to be some stress, certainly, but we're at least minimizing that as much as possible. Ease and the quickness of how we can actually access care. So if we have this prearranged, we have this set up in advance. The providers have been researching, it can just really speed up that process. And then a lot of this is very emotional. I have several family members that have been through this. It's hard enough managing the emotional piece of it. But then if you have to figure, if you have the financial stress as well, it's even more challenging.
Dave: [00:28:12] I have just an example of a client here. Let's say we've run into this. So we have a client whose mom or dad did not do proactive planning, that individual, they're setting aside their career. And oftentimes they're having to be the one to informally provide some of the care, right? So like they're, there's a significant amount of informal care provided in our country. Having a plan allows the family to oversee the care. They're making sure mom or dad's getting the care they need, but they don't necessarily have to be the one to provide that. Right. So that's a key difference. They're in a position of power because Mom and Dad did the product planning. So I would say that the biggest thing is just the emotional relief where it's a stressful thing regardless, it's going to be stressful. We're just trying to ease the. You know that as much as we possibly can.
Pam: [00:28:59] So in addressing our listeners that may be saying, oh, gosh, this is all great information. I didn't know this. Oh, I feel like I'm so behind. What would you say to someone who feels like maybe they've waited too long to start?
Dave: [00:29:12] Yeah. And again, like, certainly that is possible. But yeah, it rarely is too late to at least make some improvements. So again, a phrase I learned early on in this career is something is better than nothing and now is better than later. Right? So you don't need to have a perfect plan tomorrow. So start small. So it might just be something as simple as let's get a power of attorney in place. Let's have some liquidity for maybe short term needs or just making that first phone call to the estate attorney. Let's take a step in the right direction. And then again, like there are people that thought it was too late when they kind of see the math, they see the numbers, they at least have a roadmap to get on track so the plane can still take off. We generally do have enough runway to make up for any deficiencies in planning. It started yesterday. You know, even if it's very, very small.
Pam: [00:30:03] Gotcha. And my last question for you, Dave, is how can care planning? Linda and I work a lot with families to try and preserve the dignity of our aging adults who day by day, as we put all these things in place, feel that the end is coming one day sooner each day. So how can planning ahead help our aging adults maintain more choice, more dignity, and feel like they're still in control?
Dave: [00:30:31] Yeah. I mean, again, having the funding, having money earmarked for it and having a plan for that. Again, that just equals options. We have an ability to choose the care setting or the care facility. We might have preferred facilities that we would prefer to be in. Again, many people prefer to stay in their home, but again, if we're reacting to this, you know, instead of having 30 options, you might have three options. So again, we want to make sure our choices are maintained and that we're actually being able to fulfill that and document this stuff, like verbally tell the kids about it, but have this documented on paper, talk to your trusted advisors, and there's even services now where you can record some of this stuff. You can record, not just write it on paper, you can record video transcriptions of it. There's some pretty neat stuff out there. It's 2026 when we recorded this. That stuff exists. It's pretty neat. So again, it's just making sure everyone knows what the plan is documenting. And God forbid it happens, we know we have a plan in place.
Pam: [00:31:31] And I think that's really important because the more choices and the more decisions we can leave for our aging adults, maybe with our guidance, the more they're going to feel less that they're losing their independence. So involving them in all these decisions and making their choices is very important in helping them maintain that dignity. So, Linda, I'm going to turn it back over to you.
Linda: [00:31:56] So, Dave, this has been a phenomenal conversation with you. And the value of this type of planning is invaluable. It's, in my own words, the encouragement, I think that statement that you made about something and doing something is better than doing nothing, and doing sooner than later and starting with small steps is actually very good advice, very good educational opportunities for people to move forward. So in your words, Dave, if you were to leave the listener with one practical takeaway, what would it be? I mean, one step, what could they do today after today's episode? What would that be?
Dave: [00:32:40] Yeah, I would say, there's no cost to this. We're just investing a little bit of time. But yes, do a 30 minute document inventory and family check in this week. So be very, very quick. You're not having to write a multi thousand dollar check to do that. And again, it's a small step in the right direction. That can be very powerful, just moving in the right direction with getting this stuff organized.
Pam: [00:33:02] So Dave, what does avoiding financial regret look like in real life for aging adults and their families? Do you have any examples of that?
Dave: [00:33:12] Yeah. I mean, I'm going to go back to the real estate example. So the forest or frantic sale example, we need the money from the house to pay for care. You know, we need to relocate. We need the money very fast. You know, the half a million. I'm just going to use a nice number. The house just paid off. It's a half $1 million house, but we need to sell it like now. Like we need the money now. We need liquidity. We need the cash. So we're selling the half $1 million house for 400,000. So we're losing money. You know, we have kids that are in good relationships. They're not fighting. They're not bickering over silly stuff because one person did all the work, one person did nothing. And it's going to end there. The relationship between their 50s and the rest of their life. And again, we've got clarity. We know exactly, we're all going to mortality. It's a certainty in life. Like we're not good. None of us escape death, right? That's going to happen to all of us someday. We have clarity around what our end of life wishes and how are we going to pay for stuff. So I would say for me, that's what it looks like. And families who have a preparation around this, for example, like maybe they wanted a plan, move to a comfortable assisted living setting with funding in place. It's a lot more peaceful transition than a last minute hospital discharge scramble as an example.
Linda: [00:34:29] A very good point, very good point. So where can listeners learn more or continue the conversation with someone like you, a trusted professional?
Dave: [00:34:38] Sure. Yeah. And I think you'll have some resources as a follow up here. But yeah, if folks are welcome to pop over in email, they're welcome to visit our website, you know, and again, like to have these conversations with the trusted professionals so that the advocate, the elder law attorney, the planner, someone that has some expertise. You know, that's that's done this a few times, they specialize in aging and long term care. Planning on a proactive basis. And again, bring that inventory, have some stuff ready for that first meeting with that professional.
Pam: [00:35:14] So we're going to wrap things up and Dave, I just want to thank you so much for joining us today and for helping us break down such an important topic in a way that feels practical, and yet encouraging.
Linda: [00:35:25] So, Dave, thank you again, these conversations. As I stated earlier, I want to state them again, matter so much because getting our affairs in order is not just about the paperwork or finances, even though they can seem very overwhelming, it's about creating that clarity that you talked about, reducing the stress for everyone and helping families feel more prepared for the future.
Pam: [00:35:49] We want to remind our listeners that today's episode was shared for educational purposes only. It's not financial, legal, or insurance advice. So please reach out to a qualified professional for guidance based on your own situation.
Linda: [00:36:04] So if this episode was helpful, please share it with a friend, a family member, or a caregiver who may need it. And be sure to subscribe to Healthcare Redefined advocating for aging adults and their families so you don't miss any part of season two or season one.
Pam: [00:36:22] We're really glad that you're here with us today. So lastly, don't forget to check out the show notes for the episodes notes, and also resources for this episode.
Linda: [00:36:31] So until next time, take care of yourself and the ones that you love.