Did you know Medicare’s annual election period is just around the corner, October 15 through December 7, to be precise? Now is the time to evaluate your options. Should you stick with your current plan, or is it time to make a change? Would you be better off using Medicare classic or is a Medicare Advantage Plan the e-ticket? This is not planning that you should take lightly, especially when it comes to Medicare Advantage plans. According to a recent article on MarketWatch many seniors simply end up paying too much. Why? Because they either didn’t take the time to…
Dementia and Alzheimer’s can prove to be huge challenges for the healthcare institutions we trust to care for our affected loved ones. Unfortunately, these are challenges many institutions meet with the over-use, abuse or improper use of drugs. The good news is that this problematic trend is being identified and resolved for many families. As recently reported by the Associated Press, the turn to drugs for nursing home patients with dementia is nothing new. Dementia has a nasty tendency to disorient patients who may grow paranoid or lash out as a result. The safest way to protect them and others…
Moving between hospitals or into rehabilitation and other care centers can be a stressful time, especially for an elderly loved one. Unfortunately, too, these “care transitions” can create far greater problems than stress, as they also are prone to creating problems with the patient’s care. Potentially, these problems can have long-term affects. Care transitions are not a recent concern of health professionals, but been on their radar screen for some time. In fact, a recent study is the subject of a recent post on the New York Times’s blog series, “The New Old Age.” According to the study, a very…
Being responsible for an elderly loved one can mean adopting a rather rigid schedule and lifestyle, especially if you are the primary caregiver. How, then, do you travel? It can be a logistical nightmare, whether the travel is elective or necessary. Regardless, understanding some of the challenges and workarounds in advance can make the travel more manageable. The New Old Age blog at The New York Times recently offered some food for thought on this important subject. The big question is whether your elderly parent is traveling with you. If the travel involves you alone for business or pleasure, then…
If the debt-debate in Washington gets much worse it could mean a lot more belt-tightening for America’s seniors, including changes to the COLA for Social Security, the Cost Of Living Adjustment meant to keep seniors at pace with inflation. The change proposed by both sides of Congress and the White House officials, elaborated in this SmartMoney article, is to adjust the measurement of inflation used when determining the COLA. Inflation is a fairly common concept – the general and expected upward creep of costs – but economists are less certain about the most appropriate measurement. Currently, costs of products are…
Sometimes the biggest mistakes are also the most mundane, and those can make for an awful headache for even the best of us. The maxim proves itself once again in the case of Anthony Olivo, and Forbes’s recent re-telling of that story, where even a tax lawyer neglected proper record keeping of his services to his loved ones – both care-giving and estate-planning services – and the IRS had little sympathy. Anthony had been a tax lawyer for nearly two decades, even opening his own practice, until the needs of his aging parents grew too great. Anthony turned to become…
If there’s any lesson to be learned from the recent debacle in Washington, D.C., it’s this: Don’t run your personal finances the way the U.S. government does. “Don’t live beyond your means, and don’t increase your debt levels, especially when heading into retirement,” said Greg Rosica, a tax partner in the personal financial services group at Ernst & Young and a contributing author to the Ernst & Young Tax Guide 2011. “Don’t emulate the federal government.” – “How the Debt Deal Will Affect Retirees” I suppose it goes without saying that the past few weeks have been a rather tumultuous…
Here’s what’s important: it doesn’t matter if you have a diagnosis for your aging parent or not. It matters how your aging parent functions. It matters how you deal with what you see.
Do you have the time, inclination, or the ability to manage the affairs of your aging parents? Are the issues that your aging parents are facing becoming bigger and more complicated than you can comfortably manage? Are the other demands and responsibilities of family, work and day to day life, so abundant that you are not able to provide the desired level of control, supervision, and attention to your aging parent’s issues and crises? If you are not sure, please call our office for a consultation, or visit our website, so we can help you decide if our office may…
Frederick, MD 
301-663-9230
