By Mary Jo Johnson, MPA, CMC

During my 34 years in the long-term care industry, I have embraced the value of the care planning process, not because it is a regulation but because it is a vital tool to assure the delivery of person-centered care. 

Transcending the medical-institutional model, person-centered care calls for a more individualized, social model of care that is built around the needs of the resident (person). It is meant to eliminate (or at least reduce) the dictating demands of the care process to one more driven by a person’s voice and choice.

You’ve moved your mom or dad into a nursing home and breathed a sigh of relief. The stress of caring for your parent is now behind you and you can rest easy knowing that they’ll be well cared for by skilled nursing staff. Professional care, however, can come with a hefty price tag. Have you planned upfront for the long-term cost of the care being provided? What if your mom or dad can no longer pay the bill? Can you be held responsible?

Being on the hook for your parent’s nursing home bill is a scenario that few people think about. Can it happen to you?

By Linda Anderson, CELA

When an elderly loved one is diagnosed with a chronic illness, it can bring a tremendous amount of uncertainty to your world. How will your loved one’s condition progress? Where will you find the needed care? How will you pay for it? I’ve watched thousands of people grapple with these questions.

What are the most common mistakes families make when they are trying to find ways to pay for long-term care? We posted this question to Chris Bratton, attorney and founder of Bratton Law Group, a Life Care Planning Law Firm in the Philadelphia area.

Elder law attorneys are known for their ability to help families find ways to cope with the high cost of long-term care. Drafting legal documents like Powers of Attorney, creating strategies to protect assets, or securing public benefits like Medicaid or VA Pension Aid & Attendance are just some of the things an elder law attorney can help you do.

What if your family has more problems than just paying for care? What if you need help knowing what care and services your loved one needs, where to find those services, and how to make sure your loved one gets quality care?

If you’re looking after elderly loved ones who spend time online, watch out for tech support scams that target seniors.

It all starts innocently enough. Your mom gets a phone call or an email from someone claiming that she has a serious problem with her computer, like a virus. They want your mom to pay for tech support services to fix this problem. They ask your mom to pay for these services by wiring money, putting money on a gift card, prepaid card or cash reload card, or using a money transfer app because they know those types of payments can be hard to reverse.

If you think that a care conference for an elderly loved one is a meeting you can easily skip, Claire Merendino suggest that you think again. As one of the elder care coordinators at Bratton Law Group, a Life Care Planning Law Firm in New Jersey, Claire often runs into family members who don’t understand the purpose of these meetings.

By Chris Johnson

Scammers are creative. They come up will all sorts of ways to separate people from their money, especially seniors.

One of the more nefarious scams we’ve encountered lately involves VA pension poaching. These pension poaching organizations reach out to veterans that they think might be eligible for VA pension and aid and attendance benefits.