Long Term Care Letter from Brigitte Bromberg

 

Fall and Long Term Care Planning

 

November 15, 2012

Parsippany, NJ

 

Fall is a great metaphor for long term care (LTC) and retirement planning.  If the Spring of our lives is our youth, and young adulthood is our Summer, then our middle-aged years are Fall and our elder years are Winter. 

 

Fall this year officially begins on September 22nd and ends December 20th, and typically, this is a period when many of us are getting ready for Winter. For those of us living in snow country, if we haven't taken boots out of storage or stocked up on emergency candles/oil lamps, we might be caught short when the storm or power outage strikes.  No, there's not a blizzard every year, but they happen often enough that we know we must be prepared. 

 

Similarly, when we think about long term care planning, the Fall of our lives is the time to make plans for our Winter.  If we've made incomplete plans - or worse , no plans - we're setting ourselves up for a particularly difficult time when the ravages of Winter arrive.  Like blizzards that don't happen every year, the need for long-term care doesn't strike everyone, but it happens with enough regularity that it must be planned for.

 

The Fall season encompasses Halloween and Thanksgiving, both of which are holidays that can stimulate thought about LTC planning.   Halloween is the scary holiday of the year, and here's why that fact brings LTC to mind:  It's often speculated that people don't plan for long term care simply because they're unable or unwilling to even consider the idea they would ever need extended care - it's simply TOO SCARY.

 

This Halloween, when you're handing out goodies to scary characters, consider the things that should really frighten us:  the need for extended long term care for which we (or our loved ones) have not prepared.  That's truly scary.

 

Hard on the heels of Halloween comes Thanksgiving, a holiday that revolves around family and giving thanks.  How do we give thanks to those who raised us - and to our extended families, friends and loved ones?  How do those around the Thanksgiving table feel about how long term care will be handled?

 

When you're sitting at Thanksgiving dinner this year, imagine one of the best gifts family members can give each other:  Wouldn't it be lovely if, at every Thanksgiving table, matriarchs and patriarchs explained the planning for LTC that they had put in place.  Not only to enhance their quality of life and ensure they'll have more choices when they need care, but to lift the burdensome mantle of caregiving from the shoulders of those they love.

 

We may not be able to dodge the bullet of prolonged extended care, but, by planning, we can minimize its emotional, physical and financial toll on those we love.

 

 

 

Brigitte Bromberg, MS, CFP(R), CSA(R) is a long term care insurance specialist and president of Winning Strategies Group LLC, an independent insurance and risk management firm located in Parsippany, NJ. She is one of the first agents nationwide to become involved in the Association of Jewish Family and Children's Agencies affinity long term care insurance program.

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