I didn't fully comprehend the cost of eldercare

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Advice I was given some years ago is patients typically do not go beyond 2 yrs needing 24/7 care. I think this is where palliative care only, that decision needs to be made.

Mine is starting year five.

Major neurological disease excluded, why would you keep someone alive this long to suffer? Do they never get a UTI or the flu?

Not the PP you are responding to. I see facilities and at home care workers "keeping" their patients/jobs alive. If you are doing everything for someone, they can live surprisingly long. And the problem with UTIs is that they can present in ways that requires emergency care. You can't allow a patient to stay in that state and not treat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Advice I was given some years ago is patients typically do not go beyond 2 yrs needing 24/7 care. I think this is where palliative care only, that decision needs to be made.

Mine is starting year five.

Major neurological disease excluded, why would you keep someone alive this long to suffer? Do they never get a UTI or the flu?

Not the PP you are responding to. I see facilities and at home care workers "keeping" their patients/jobs alive. If you are doing everything for someone, they can live surprisingly long. And the problem with UTIs is that they can present in ways that requires emergency care. You can't allow a patient to stay in that state and not treat.

Yes you can if they are on hospice.

[Anonymous]

Hello from hell in SC! I’m reporting that my 80 year old mother with dementia in a memory care facility is currently costing 36k a month due to the need for 24/7 private aids due to lots of falls!

She was frugal her whole life and saved a nest egg as a teacher. A year at Clemson for one of our kids is being spent a month for her crappy care with uneducated aides who ignore her half of the time unless I argue with their supervisor.

My advice is to make sure whatever facility you place your parents in at the beginning of this journey is also qualified to accept Medicaid and has a good reputation as a Medicaid facility so that one day you can transition to that when the money runs out.

We will be moving her to a facility that requests a year of private pay before they will accept Medicaid and that is what we will need to do because she may live a lot longer, but her money is being rapidly spent down for her care

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hello from hell in SC! I’m reporting that my 80 year old mother with dementia in a memory care facility is currently costing 36k a month due to the need for 24/7 private aids due to lots of falls!

She was frugal her whole life and saved a nest egg as a teacher. A year at Clemson for one of our kids is being spent a month for her crappy care with uneducated aides who ignore her half of the time unless I argue with their supervisor.

My advice is to make sure whatever facility you place your parents in at the beginning of this journey is also qualified to accept Medicaid and has a good reputation as a Medicaid facility so that one day you can transition to that when the money runs out.

We will be moving her to a facility that requests a year of private pay before they will accept Medicaid and that is what we will need to do because she may live a lot longer, but her money is being rapidly spent down for her care

This is simply not possible for my family. We will never be able to spend 36k/month on anything. It just doesn't seem possible that this is a real option for any but the wealthiest families, and even then it would be a stretch.

I don't understand how a facility charging that amount of money even stays in business because who can pay it? How do they even have enough residents?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hello from hell in SC! I’m reporting that my 80 year old mother with dementia in a memory care facility is currently costing 36k a month due to the need for 24/7 private aids due to lots of falls!

She was frugal her whole life and saved a nest egg as a teacher. A year at Clemson for one of our kids is being spent a month for her crappy care with uneducated aides who ignore her half of the time unless I argue with their supervisor.

My advice is to make sure whatever facility you place your parents in at the beginning of this journey is also qualified to accept Medicaid and has a good reputation as a Medicaid facility so that one day you can transition to that when the money runs out.

We will be moving her to a facility that requests a year of private pay before they will accept Medicaid and that is what we will need to do because she may live a lot longer, but her money is being rapidly spent down for her care

Why are you spending your college savings on this if your mother has savings? Shouldn’t you be spending down her funds that she saved for this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is why my plan is to kill myself if I get in this situation. I’d rather leave my money to my kids than burn through it all myself.

Same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hello from hell in SC! I’m reporting that my 80 year old mother with dementia in a memory care facility is currently costing 36k a month due to the need for 24/7 private aids due to lots of falls!

She was frugal her whole life and saved a nest egg as a teacher. A year at Clemson for one of our kids is being spent a month for her crappy care with uneducated aides who ignore her half of the time unless I argue with their supervisor.

My advice is to make sure whatever facility you place your parents in at the beginning of this journey is also qualified to accept Medicaid and has a good reputation as a Medicaid facility so that one day you can transition to that when the money runs out.

We will be moving her to a facility that requests a year of private pay before they will accept Medicaid and that is what we will need to do because she may live a lot longer, but her money is being rapidly spent down for her care

Why are you spending your college savings on this if your mother has savings? Shouldn’t you be spending down her funds that she saved for this?

I think PP is merely pointing out what an equivalent cost would be to show the magnitude, not that she is spending her kids’ college savings on her mother’s care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hello from hell in SC! I’m reporting that my 80 year old mother with dementia in a memory care facility is currently costing 36k a month due to the need for 24/7 private aids due to lots of falls!

She was frugal her whole life and saved a nest egg as a teacher. A year at Clemson for one of our kids is being spent a month for her crappy care with uneducated aides who ignore her half of the time unless I argue with their supervisor.

My advice is to make sure whatever facility you place your parents in at the beginning of this journey is also qualified to accept Medicaid and has a good reputation as a Medicaid facility so that one day you can transition to that when the money runs out.

We will be moving her to a facility that requests a year of private pay before they will accept Medicaid and that is what we will need to do because she may live a lot longer, but her money is being rapidly spent down for her care

And I thought we had it bad at $26k a month. I feel this so much. We’re also memory care plus 1/2 time one on one caregiver and it’s hard not to think about the house that could have been bought with the money spent on elder care. But it is my mom’s money and this is what it should be used for. Still stings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hello from hell in SC! I’m reporting that my 80 year old mother with dementia in a memory care facility is currently costing 36k a month due to the need for 24/7 private aids due to lots of falls!

She was frugal her whole life and saved a nest egg as a teacher. A year at Clemson for one of our kids is being spent a month for her crappy care with uneducated aides who ignore her half of the time unless I argue with their supervisor.

My advice is to make sure whatever facility you place your parents in at the beginning of this journey is also qualified to accept Medicaid and has a good reputation as a Medicaid facility so that one day you can transition to that when the money runs out.

We will be moving her to a facility that requests a year of private pay before they will accept Medicaid and that is what we will need to do because she may live a lot longer, but her money is being rapidly spent down for her care

This is simply not possible for my family. We will never be able to spend 36k/month on anything. It just doesn't seem possible that this is a real option for any but the wealthiest families, and even then it would be a stretch.

I don't understand how a facility charging that amount of money even stays in business because who can pay it? How do they even have enough residents?

This is what I don't get. My grandmother also had dementia and my mom was recounting how upset she was that her sister and step-siblings said they wouldn't help pay for her care, so she just got what Medicaid could provide. Even if they had been willing to help financially, why would she think it could close that gap? Nobody has that kind of disposable income. For most people, it's an order of magnitude greater than family "help" can provide.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My father lingered, mostly bed bound and mute with primary progressive aphasia (basically locked in syndrome) for an agonizingly long 8 months in a very expensive private skilled nursing facility.

My hot take in retrospect: we/I took too long to get him into hospice care. I really think that once a patient gets a dire diagnosis (dementia) the family needs to take a hard look at outcomes and what they want their loved ones last years -months-days to look like.

Put a Do Not Resuscitate order in place - have a copy of the order out on display and every family member needs to keep a copy. Stop all meds - my mom insisted my dad keep taking his BP meds (this prolonged his life). Initiate palliative care and transition to hospice.

My dad died 15 days into hospice care.

I can’t get assisted living to do this.

$$$$, I suspect.

+1
We had the DNR but BP meds were definitely the crutch that extended a low quality of life. Who gets to decide to stop administering? Not like the patient would think/know to take them.

You put them on Hospice. Nothing but pain meds if needed and no calls to 911.

[Anonymous]

I just don't understand how anyone except the super wealthy can afford even $10k month. Where are all the old poor people living that doesn't have family?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just don't understand how anyone except the super wealthy can afford even $10k month. Where are all the old poor people living that doesn't have family?

medicaid nursing homes. typically it’s more of an issue of if you have always been poor/don’t have family who can help, it’s not really a question and you are automatically put in a medicare nursing home. in a lot of ways, it’s the very poor and very wealthy that do ok at the end of life. It’s everyone in between that struggles.

[Anonymous]

Hello from hell in SC! I’m reporting that my 80 year old mother with dementia in a memory care facility is currently costing 36k a month due to the need for 24/7 private aids due to lots of falls!

Maybe she should be allowed to fall. My mother was mid stage 6 , fell, fractured her pelvis, went on hospice and passed a month later on about of morphine and Ativan. It was more more in line with what she would have wanted (and articulated to me for years) than being kept barely alive while draining any remaining funds.

I know it’s not an easy decision but my mom had done a dementia directive and there wasn’t much to be done anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just don't understand how anyone except the super wealthy can afford even $10k month. Where are all the old poor people living that doesn't have family?

medicaid nursing homes. typically it’s more of an issue of if you have always been poor/don’t have family who can help, it’s not really a question and you are automatically put in a medicare nursing home. in a lot of ways, it’s the very poor and very wealthy that do ok at the end of life. It’s everyone in between that struggles.

Op here, I just had the convo with my MIL she has a pension which makes this all more complicated. Not enough to pay 30k a month but too much for medicaid. I guess we create a certain type of trust and put it all in their to essentially save it for the state when she dies. It's a state pension so all sort of ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Hello from hell in SC! I’m reporting that my 80 year old mother with dementia in a memory care facility is currently costing 36k a month due to the need for 24/7 private aids due to lots of falls!

Maybe she should be allowed to fall. My mother was mid stage 6 , fell, fractured her pelvis, went on hospice and passed a month later on about of morphine and Ativan. It was more more in line with what she would have wanted (and articulated to me for years) than being kept barely alive while draining any remaining funds.

I know it’s not an easy decision but my mom had done a dementia directive and there wasn’t much to be done anyway.

This is an interesting point. The problem is what they injure another resident while falling? Once on the ground, you can't just prop them back up, you have to assess for injury so it can be done safely. The family that refuses to pay for extra care, can be the same family that sues the facility for the fall or for improper handling of the fall.