Last week, I talked about a variety of types of care that are available when an extended care / long-term care situation arises. Remember, there are two types of care – formal and informal.
As a reminder, informal care is the most prevalent care provided and it generally comes from an untrained individual like a spouse, family member, or neighbor.
According to a survey commissioned by OneAmerica Financial and conducted by Hanover Research, 63% of caregivers were family members while 27% was their spouse.
You can find the OneAmerica Financial 2024 Caregiver Study by following this link.
When you consider that more than half of the people responded that they intend to remain at home and receive care there, you can see that there is a distinct convergence of at-home care with preference for a caregiver being a family member.
Convenience and familiarity are a factor in the large number people who elect to receive informal care at home. Certainly, much of that can be attributed to lack of planning and the family having to react to a major health event and the long term effects that it presents.
Here’s the thing. With informal care – most people who end up as a caregiver are unprepared to fill that role. Full-time caregivers are more likely to learn through “trial and error” than part-time caregivers according to the survey. This leads me to the question …
Just because someone can provide care, are they capable of providing the care?
I ask that question simply because fo the reality of the situation. Someone may be available, but are the competent? And, are they confident in their ability to deliver the care that is needed?
Consider this scenario, I am 6’1” and 210 lbs; my wife is a foot shorter and a hundred pounds ligther than me. Imagine what might happen if she was my caregiver and I fell.
- Would she be strong enough to lift me?
- Would she know how to do it without injuring herself or me (she is more important than because she is my caregiver)?
- And, if something were to happen to her while she attempted to help me, how would that be dealt with?
That’s just one set of questions that we’ve asked ourselves. The answer in my house is that we are leaning toward formal care given our physical discrepancies. In my eyes, it just wouldn’t be safe for a long term situation. Initially – for a couple weeks or months, but not on a long term basis regardless of how much training my wife received.
I am not condemning informal care at all. I am simply stating that there are considerations that need to be made when deciding how to address an extended care / long-term care situation. And, there will be a point in time where formal care will be the safest and best choice.
An important thing to remember is that Asset Care 2024 provides funding for both informal & formal care.
This is one of the reasons why we always talk about planning and communicating that plan with family members. The best plans need to be articulated and shared.
As a reminder, OneAmerica Financial has produced the consumer-approved Step by Step Guide to Receiving Long Term Care as a tool to help further the planning discussion. In addition to that, the Care Planning Worksheet (also consumer approved) can serve as a blueprint for a planning conversation. There is also the consumer-focused LTC Planning webpage from OneAmerica Financial where more information and tools are located.
If you want to know more about LTC or Asset Care, please contact your BGA, FMO, or IMO. Or, you can speak with my internal Nick Angelov at (844) 623-4251 or nick.angelov.isp@oneamerica.com
Fridays with Fisher 