All by Itself, Managing the Money Is a Full-time Job

Lessons learned . . .

I have job, a full-time job. Since I manage two adult day service associations—Washington Adult Day Services Association and National Adult Day Services Association—it sometimes feels like I have two full-time jobs. (I’m absolutely not complaining; my architect husband has been out of work since January.) And I have been managing my mother’s finances and care for about two years, which means I essentially have three jobs.

When my mother sold her condo in Phoenix a couple of years ago and paid off the line of credit we used to buy home care in Phoenix, she netted about $60,000. It was not a lot of money with which to live in the long-term care world, but it was enough to get started—on her own terms. Using Medicaid to pay for long-term care services is a drag, a situation to be postponed for as long as possible.

While it is said that experience is the best teacher, I think that learning from someone else’s experience is often less painful. I could have avoided a fair amount of stress if I had done a few things differently.

For one, I would have immediately found a supplemental insurance policy instead of dealing with traditional Medicare for months. As with health care, Medicare supplemental insurance may not move from state to state, or even from county to county. While Mom was on traditional Medicare, I looked for the cheapest supplemental plan, one that did this and one that did that. Forget about it. I should have just gone with AARP’s supplemental in the first place. I am not advertising AARP insurance by any means. I’m just saying that traditional Medicare generates a morass of paper work that is unmanageable for everyone except a trained billing specialist, which I am not. I tried to save money and get the “best” plan and ended up spending more time and probably more money than I had to.

Second, I should have moved the checking and savings accounts to a bank near me. “Oh, your account is with Bank of America in Arizona? We’re on different databases, so I’ll have to call on that.” Thanks so much. I should have moved all accounts to a bank in my town the week after Mom moved to Seattle.

Finally, I should have learned early on that no one will talk with me about Mom’s bills or finances without a durable power of attorney (DPA) in hand. Health care systems are the worst. Even though the hospital gets a copy of the DPA, that doesn’t mean the hospital billing office will have a record of it. Even though the doctor has a copy in Mom’s medical record, that doesn’t mean the emergency department will get a copy. Rather than cart around a seven-page DPA drafted by an attorney, now I carry a simple two-page document that I can easily fax or copy. Wish I had thought of this months ago. Think of the frustration I would have avoided.

Part of the caregiving challenge is the temptation to focus exclusively on the immediate and avoid the importance of looking past the horizon. Sometimes it seems easier to just go with what exists. But, in the long run, taking time to make necessary changes really pays off.

By Sara Myers
A Good Enough Daughter Blog