Articles Posted in Elder law estate planning

In 2019, the U.S. Census Bureau, determined that the average national retirement age was between 63 and 64 for men and 62 for women. Most Americans agree that in retirement they’ll need saving to supplement Social Security benefits. Social Security alone will not get them through retirement. The current life expectancy for Americans is 78.93.

 
Social Security benefits accounts for close to 40% of your pre-retirement income. The average Social Security monthly benefit in 2018 was $1,409.91 a month, or about $16,919 a year. You will need savings to cover the other 60% through a combination of cash, 401k, and other retirement accounts for income. Schwab conducted a survey of its  401k plan participants and found that the participants themselves calculated they’ll need savings of $1.7 million on average to get through retirement.  

 
To figure out how much money you’ll need to support yourself in retirement consider the following:

Millions of Americans are expected to experience a drop in their FICO score when the Fair Isaac Corporation, the company that invented the FICO score, modifies the methodology they use to determine a consumer’s FICO score. Beginning in the summer of 2020, lenders may opt to use the new methodology when assessing the creditworthiness of a consumer when extending credit and setting interest rates on mortgages and consumer loans, such as credit card or automobile loans.

 
Link between consumer behavior and your FICO score

Consumers with fair credit, growing debt, who take out personal loans to consolidate debt, or who are about to max out their credit cards are expected to see a negative impact to their FICO credit score. The Fair Isaac Corporation updates its scoring model every few years. The last time significant changes were implemented was in 2014, where it was thought that credit restrictions were lessoned. For individuals with little to no credit, utility payment histories, rental payment histories, and the elimination of civil judgments from individual’s credit histories, helped bolster their credit score.

The Trump Administration announced on March 9 broad new rules that will allow you to share your medical records with third-party apps of your choice in order to retrieve medical data like blood test results and doctor’s progress notes directly from your health care providers.  According to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) the new system intends to make it easy for you to manager your health care on smartphones, similar to how you manage your finances through apps on their smartphones.

 
Anyone who has tried to access their medical records can tell you that giving people access to their medical records via mobile apps is a major milestone for patient rights. Some physicians still require patients to pick up health records on computer disks or issue paper copies only, charging patients exorbitant fees to process a request for copies of your medical records.

 
Even if your health care provides you access to your medical records, they can still limitation what type of information you can access from your medical records. For example, if you get blood drawn from a laboratory, you cannot have access to the results of your test until your doctor views your results and authorizes the laboratory to release your blood test results to you.  In the last several years there has been a proliferation of online portals to access information about upcoming appointments, medical records, and vital signs. These portals do not always provide access to progress notes or results from imaging tests, like MRIs and x-rays.

On March 13, CMS issued updated guidance for visitors to nursing homes related to COVID-19. If your loved one is residing in a nursing home, the facility should be actively screening and restricting or limiting visitors according to CMS guidelines. CMS is the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a division of the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

 
In addition to guidance on screening and restricting or limiting visitors, CMS recommends that nursing homes do the following:

• Review and revise how they interact with volunteers, vendors, agency staff, EMS personnel and equipment, transportation workers, and other practitioners

Did you know that the cost of in-home care services and nursing home care are not covered items under the Medicare program? According to AARP, the average cost of nursing home stays is more than $100,00 per year in many parts of the United States. A comprehensive retirement plan should include long-term care insurance because costs like these can drain your retirement savings quickly.

 
What is long-term care insurance?

Long-term care insurance (LTC) helps individuals and couples protect against medical expenses not covered under the Medicare program. Once you or your spouse can no longer perform daily living activities such as bathing, dressing, and eating on your own, LTC insurance typically quicks in to cover in-home care services. There is a waiting period (called “elimination period”) of sorts that applies to most plans before coverage begins in earnest. Check your insurance policy documents for more information.