CAREfidence provides a proven 4-step process....

Awareness is the first step, and that begins with a conversation about your personal experiences with Long-Term Care (LTC) or helping you recognize why this planning is essential. You will understand how answers to basic questions about healthcare in retirement should be reflected in your financial, retirement, estate, or risk management plan. At this stage, the Long-Term Care Planning Checklist is introduced to focus on critical issues, including:

• What “Long-Term Care” means to you and your loved ones
• Your care preferences and preferred location.
• Legal documents you have executed and tax planning considerations.
• Whether you have accurately projected LTC needs and costs
• Your current strategy for funding future care needs.
• Your caregiver support plan and whether your family is aware of expectations  

Rather than relying on abstract numbers or impersonal, fear-based statistics, this step grounds the discussion in real-life preferences and the concept of planning for care, creating a natural bridge to step #2.

Assessment is the second step, which requires quantifying your current and future costs of Healthcare In Retirement and LTC.  Only by using personal health, lifestyle, and family dynamics, with a tool like the HALO, can we realistically project your future care needs or the cost of care.  This step highlights the unfunded liability hiding on your personal balance sheet and provides the opportunity to align it with your comprehensive planning. 

Alignment is the third step, and this is where we take stock of your resources and evaluate how they can best meet your planning targets. The objective is to reinforce that, regardless of the eventual strategy, resources must ultimately align with one of four possible outcomes:

· Family or Friends – Relying on loved ones for care, with all the physical, emotional, and financial consequences that come with it.

· Government – Depending on Medicaid when assets are depleted, with its limits and restrictions.

· Go It Alone – Attempting to self-fund care, which usually ignores managing care, tax efficiency, and conflicts of interest in the family, all leaving gaps in care and coordination.

· Risk Mitigation – Transferring the liability using an insurance-based strategy better leverages assets, preserves flexibility, and protects loved ones.

Action is the final step, and this is where planning becomes reality, including implementing a written LTC Plan and/or beginning the underwriting process to include an appropriate insurance-based strategy.  Just like any other area of risk management, a plan without execution is meaningless, and this step ensures your expectations and intentions are put in place and reviewed over time as circumstances change.

It’s important to recognize that addressing this topic is not optional. No one can definitively answer the question of whether LTC will be needed or to what extent, but they can ensure you and your loved ones are properly prepared when that time arrives.  Now is the time to implement planning that keeps you in control of healthcare, rather than healthcare taking control of your planning.