Caregiver Hints

For me, there wasn’t much of a question of who would pay for my Mother’s care. Once her assets were extinguished, as the only child it was up to me to foot the bill for anything not covered by insurance, Social Security, or Medicare. In larger families, however, the issue may arise as to who is responsible and for what?

The following CNN article discusses this question and the rising need to find solutions to the expanding issue of healthcare for the aged. Even though it not a popular subject, families should discuss the issue as a group before they are in the middle of dealing with it. Choosing who will provide hands-on care, if any, or financial assistance early could prevent a lot of fighting and bickering later. Also, as people get older, they should take the initiative to have a say in their care by planning ahead and discussing their wishes with the family.

CNN - Who should pay for mom and dad’s care?

In a previous post I mentioned the importance of recording details such a doctors’ contact info, medications, insurance information, among other data in a notebook that could be referenced. If you are doing a lot of the communication such as bill paying and arranging appointments, it can be really helpful to keep ongoing details about who you talked to and what happened, or what was said. This was incredibly important when I was taking care of my Mom’s finances, appointments, and assets. If I had not documented these interactions and discussions, I would have easily lost track of who said what, and whether I was waiting for additional information. I think the most trouble I had was with bills. Since I would frequently have to get people to resubmit charges to Medicare or insurance, or call the insurance companies to see what was happening, I would occasionally loose track of what bills I should be paying, and which were waiting for resubmission. The problem is that the accounting departments just keep sending invoices regardless of whether they are waiting for payment from elsewhere. Unless you take notes and stay on top of it, it is really hard to be sure what you really owe, and to whom. Naturally, you are entitled to get a refund if you AND the insurance company pay for the same thing, but that can get even messier.

The simplest way to take notes is just to use a small notebook. I preferred a size around 5 in. by 8 in. Small enough to easy pack or carry, but big enough to hold a lot of quick notes. This was also good for taking notes at the doctor’s office when I went with my Mother. Since my Mom would have trouble remembering the details of her doctor visits, it was best for me to take the time to go with her and find out from the doctor what was going on. Further discussion of this will be carried over into another posting.

In addition to the notebook, I used a computer program to track bill payments and phone calls. Sometimes I would transcribe information form the notebook into the program for later reference. Since I use a Macintosh computer, i used the program Circus Ponies Notebook. This program is great because it allows to to enter and import all kinds of data, create checklists, and best of all it automatically creates a set of index pages for your information for quick look-up. I am searching for a similar program that runs on Windows to recommend to PC users. When I do I’ll update this post. It has lots of other nice features which you can read about on their website. I am hoping to create a Notebook template to use with the program that will help get you started organizing your data. It will be available for download sometime in the future.

This is perhaps the most important legal document you will have to deal with next to a person’s will. For anyone who is about to begin the journey of caring for an aging parent or loved one, you will find that if this is not taken care of early enough, it will make the tasks of managing the person’s care and finances incredibly difficult.

For anyone who is facing the onset of dementia or Alzheimer’s in a parent, it will be really important to have a POA prepared and dealt with BEFORE the person is deemed unfit to authorize such a document.

I narrowly missed having my Mother officially diagnosed with dementia before getting this paperwork processed. To have a doctor officially make this diagnosis before your parent can make this decision, will make the ability to get legal approval to manage their assets extremely difficult.

I will be talking more about this with some details in the future. I only stumbled upon this fact accidentally and if I hadn’t found out until later, I would have had even more stress that I already had. You are going to need to find good legal advice to take on the variety of issues you will come across to care for a family member. The more prepared you are the better!