Presented by: June Duncan

More than five million Americans are affected by Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, and other memory-related disorders. These individuals may require 24-hour care, depending on their disease’s progression, and those costs can skyrocket because specialized dementia services are expensive. Whilst you may be struggling to find practices such as a Windsor medical clinic or one closer to your home, that could offer affordable urgent care should you need it. Hopefully, after reading more on this topic you may feel better equipped.

Finding affordable, quality care
When it’s clear that a loved one will require additional caregiving, take steps to protect their assets and secure affordable, quality care. Memory care for Alzheimer’s or dementia patients differs from facilities that provide more comprehensive assisted living support.

Identify family resources, update your loved one’s legal and financial affairs, and monitor accounts to protect finances from fraud or bad decisions. Evaluate a variety of senior care communities; if one appeals, join the waiting list. Use this checklist to help evaluate a facility that includes programs exclusively dedicated to helping those with memory issues.

Negotiate costs. Many assisted living facilities have the flexibility to negotiate the monthly rate. You could check online at websites similar to https://www.chelseaseniorliving.com/mental-health-services-nj/ and even ask a health care professional for advice on affording the specialized care that may be needed. Ask about move-in incentives, too. The cost of assisted living also varies by location; suburbs and outlying communities may charge less, so you could try finding a nursing home outside your zip code.

Compare inclusive pricing with a la carte costs. Some facilities allow you to pick and choose the services you or your loved one will receive-and that may translate into cost savings if you’re able to fill in those gaps yourself or with other low-cost/no-cost services.

Options to covering the cost of care
Expect to pay for at least a portion of this care out of pocket, especially since Medicare covers nursing home benefits only up to 100 days. If someone with Alzheimer’s requires care in a psychiatric hospital, Medicare will extend its coverage an additional 90 days. It does not pay for personal or custodial care in assisted living facilities or for those living at home, although it does cover medical care in either location.

Medicaid, on the other hand, differs from state to state. You can apply for a Medicaid Waiver to help cover the cost of receiving care outside of a nursing home. Patients with mid to late-stage Alzheimer’s often qualify for Medicaid coverage; however, there are financial eligibility restrictions for the program, which also takes into account applicants’ capacity for self-care. To learn more about the advantages of the program and ultimately decide whether or not to join, those who are still perplexed about the matter can seek the advice of a trustworthy expert who offers medicaid consulting services.

Alternative funding sources for long-term nursing home care
Cash in personal assets. Those assets may include investments like stocks, bonds, savings accounts, real estate, and personal property, like jewelry or artwork. Selling a home that’s grown in equity may help liquidate much-needed cash, or you can convert a home’s equity into cash with a reverse mortgage. While reverse mortgages won’t impact Social Security or Medicare benefits, they can disqualify someone from other government programs, like Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Medicaid.

A variety of state-managed and funded programs are available for lower-income residents, including those with Alzheimer’s. This list of state non-Medicaid assistance programs is a good place to start.

Take out a personal loan. A cost-effective short-term solution to covering costs of care may be to secure a personal loan rather than charging the expense on a credit card. Ultimately, choosing the right loan comes down to finding the lowest possible rate-APRs typically range between 4.99% and 35.99%, so research carefully.

Explore government programs. In addition to Medicare, the government offers other programs to those who qualify, like SSI, which guarantees a minimum monthly income to people age 65 and older.

Secure long-term care insurance. This insurance won’t be granted to individuals already diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. However, if the person carries this insurance prior to a diagnosis-and the best time to get long-term care insurance is in your mid-50s-review the policy to see if Alzheimer’s care is covered. If it isn’t, check with the policyholder about adding a rider to cover that expense.

The National Institute on Aging provides an exceptional resource for caregivers seeking support and information about getting help for people with Alzheimer’s. The site offers a variety of contacts to help you find low-cost or free community support services as well as other sources to help you cover the costs not covered by the programs listed above.

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Something isn’t right. As a country, we are getting sicker every day. Productivity is on the decline, and most employees report not being engaged while on the clock. Relentless increases in healthcare costs are crippling organizations, and the future promises more of the same. We are quickly reaching a crossroads where the cost of healthcare and the impact of lost productivity will cause irreparable damage to organizations of all sizes.

Part of the problem is that traditional approaches to wellness have not delivered on the promise of reduced cost and improved productivity. Many of these wellness programs were poorly constructed and inconsistently delivered. As more vendors poured into the space, the quality of services offered began to vary widely and choosing an effective partner became more and more challenging for employers. Even the higher quality programs available were limited in their impact because they focused only on physical health problems instead of fueling the whole person.

The bottom line is this: It’s time to set aside wellness “programs” in favor of wellbeing strategies. It’s time for a new approach that goes beyond wellness to true potential.

True potential occurs when individuals are exceling in every facet of their lives: physically, emotionally, socially, and financially. It occurs when an organization is experiencing higher performance, organizational trustworthiness and employee engagement.

Reaching true potential is marked by:

• Individuals who are thriving, contributing, connecting and learning.
• Lower healthcare costs and improved productivity.
• A culture built on trust where people do their best work.

True potential isn’t about managing someone’s health or changing behaviors. It’s about creating opportunities for individuals to live their best lives and do their best work. It’s about establishing a fresh perspective, shaping a trustworthy culture and nurturing healthy habits. This approach requires us to reevaluate everything we have come to accept with the status quo and to move beyond it.

Applying this new mindset starts with re-evaluating what success looks like. It requires us to specifically identify what we are trying to accomplish and how to meaningfully measure it.

Too often, vendors create their own metrics for demonstrating ROI, based on their specific strengths or self-generated formulas that don’t hold up to intense scrutiny. This has created a lot of noise and eroded the credibility of outcomes generated by traditional wellness programs. Measuring ROI has been a huge debate and an enormous distraction for decades. In the new model, we must set our sights on a meaningful method to measure progress toward true potential, one that can be an accurate and credible barometer of value.

Where do we find such a standard? Thanks to foundational research by the University of Michigan, which spans 40 years and 4 million healthcare claims, we have the answer. Through this research, the University identified 15 benchmark risks in physical, emotional, social and financial wellbeing that most directly impact healthcare costs and productivity.

This set of benchmark wellbeing risks is the gold standard when gauging the effectiveness of wellbeing strategies aimed at fueling true potential. These benchmark wellbeing risks are the set of factors that most directly affect the bottom line and the wellbeing of a population, the factors that make the difference between reaching true potential and falling short of it. By using this scientifically-valid standard to measure and evaluate your efforts, you can hold vendors and partners accountable for delivering and demonstrating results and have confidence that you are receiving a return on your investment of time and money. This is a necessary first step in taking a fresh approach to improving the wellbeing of your population.

Want to learn more about the roadmap for reaching true potential? Contact us today for a consultation and also receive a free whitepaper from our partner CHC Wellbeing. We can help you transform your wellness programs into wellbeing strategies that get results.