Answer Your the Eldercare Questions Online

Madison Lockwood asked:




Finding the right way to care for aging members of the family can be tough job. There are a variety of online resources for researching your options so you can make a choice that will benefit everyone.

The aging of America has led to a booming industry providing for the care of our seniors. It has also led to difficulties with Medicare and dire threats of the collapse of Social Security. What is important however is that the medical establishment has responded in a variety of ways to support the special needs of people in their final years.

The omnibus site provided by the Department of Health and Human Services is http://www.eldercare.gov/Eldercare/Public/Home.asp. This site provides a thorough selection of choices for locating eldercare services in your community. The site is multilingual and provides both online support and phone numbers that can be utilized.

A sponsored site with good information can be found at http://www.ec-online.net. It is sponsored by QuietCare, a security warning device for seniors living at home. Nevertheless, the site has a good collection of “how to” articles for both seniors and those family members who feel charged with guiding them through the lifestyle changes leading to eldercare.

An extremely well organized site that provides the same guidance and a library of other online resources is at http://www.aging-parents-and-elder-care.com. This site takes the caregiver from first steps right through facility selection and legal issues. Perhaps the most valuable portion of the site is a list of related online sites, broken out by category. Divisions include Assisted Living; Food and Nutrition; Legal Issues; Equipment and Personal Health Supplies; Financial Issues; and several others. For each of these categories the site provides a dozen or more major web sites as references. A few are commercial; more of them, however, appear to be sites put up by professional associations in the industry or non-profits that give unbiased recommendations on resources.

There is a National Long Term Care Ombudsman Resource Center (ORC) established and supported by the Federal Government. This organization is an excellent starting point for localized resources. You can click on a map on their web site and select a state where you’ll find listings for such offices as the State and Regional Ombudsmen, Office of Licensure (where you can check on Long Term Care facilities); Medicaid Fraud Control; and so forth. The site is located at: http://www.ltcombudsman.org/static_pages/help.cfm.

Ancillary issues facing our senior population today is what sort of long term care insurance is best for them, and the question of whether or not they should pursue home equity conversion, a “reverse mortgage,” to finance their final years. There are increasing numbers of online resources relating to both these areas.

One site that covers both issues and several other related matters – such as wills, trusts and powers of attorney; assistive technology and remote monitoring – is the National Care Planning Council’s Guide to Long Term Care Planning at http://www.longtermcarelink.net/eldercare.htm. The site includes 35 in-depth chapters totaling over 670 printable pages covering virtually all areas of long-term care planning. It also provides numerous lists of care providers, advisers and specialized services in four categories of care needs. For the role of Medicare in Long Term Care, go to the government site at http://www.medicare.gov/LongTermCare/Static/Home.asp.

Finally, the AARP provides some basic information on reverse mortgages at http://www.aarp.org/money/revmort/. HUD has a reverse mortgage program that is insured by the FHA and is outlined at http://www.hud.gov/buying/reverse.cfm. Reverse mortgages are expensive, and not without complications. The FHA insists that reverse mortgages on loans they’ve insured not be provided without a counseling session between an FHA or HUD professional and the homeowners. You can learn more about this program and other aspects of reverse mortgages at Fannie Mae’s site: http://www.fanniemae.com/homebuyers/findamortgage/reverse/index.jhtml.