Hello and welcome back to How to Retire. I’m Ben Fuchs. Something I see happen to clients all thetime. They’ve done everything right. They’ve saved, they’ve planned, and then a phone call comesfrom mom or dad or about mom or dad, and suddenly the whole plan shifts. The parent conversation,which is why we brought today’s guest in, Kate Tice. Kate is a certified geriatric care managerwith over 20 years of experience working with older adults and their families in Connecticut. Sheholds a master’s degree in human development and gerontology, which I’ve hopefully said right, is acertified care manager and is the founder of Compassionate Choice Connecticut here in West Arford.Kate, in addition to all of that, we went to high school together. We did.We met, it was like, what, 10 years ago when we were in tight school? About eight,maybe. Okay, good. All right. So what is a geriatric care manager?What is that? Sure. Please. Great question. Thank you. A geriatric care manager is someone thathelps serve as an advocate and helps people navigate challenges that can come with aging.I am part of an association called the Aging Life Care Association, which means that I abide bystrict ethical guidelines. um and i really work i would say the best way to summarize it is aprofessional quarterback okay so give me the situation right we get that phone call somebody getsthat phone call why do they call kate what does kate like what what is what is kate quarterback sothere are many things that a care manager can help with they can help with things such asnavigating a crisis situation such as getting a phone call that mom or dad was sent to theemergency room don’t know what’s going on, panic takes over, stress, all of it.A care manager comes in, they’re an unbiased opinion, and they help take some of that stress offthe shoulders of the clients and their families.I know this is not the most fun topic in the world, but I think it’s very important. It’s veryimportant for my clients to understand that they have a place where they can go and somebody thatunderstands the system. How long have you been working in this system and doing this type of work?Sure. So, great question. I was kind of a lost soul in college and bounced around.In high school? And in high school, sure. Why not? Sorry, I don’t… I bounced around colleges andit took the… my grandfather having alzheimer’s disease to really understand that this is what iwas meant to do in life he was in and out of the hospital in and out of nursing homes and it wasthen that i said time out i want to help families navigate through this so i decided i was going todedicate my career to helping others there were lots of decisions that had to be made in thatperiod of time where our family didn’t agree they didn’t agree they didn’t know what mygrandfather’s wishes were and it created a ton of stress and turmoil for our entire family and itwas something that i didn’t want other people to go through And if I am able to share my experienceand my knowledge, that was something that I wanted to share with others. So I’ve really been inthis field since I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 2003. I started with the Alzheimer’sAssociation, and I worked my way through a continuum of care, really. Home care,nursing home care, assisted living, you name it. Elder law attorney, I wanted to understand.every part of aging to be able to share those experiences with people.Awesome. And as much as I like to give you a hard time, I still have to appreciate the good workthat you do. Thank you. Can you give me an example of a time when you know someone didn’t listen toyour advice and then they did listen to your advice you know when we were talking we had coffee acouple weeks back you gave me a story and maybe you know not using names but you give me an idea ofyou know kind of the pitfalls of like what can happen if you don’t understand what you’re trying tonavigate through Sure. I have a great example, actually, that you’ll appreciate because it dealswith finances. Oh, I like money. There you go. Thank you. I was working with a family and provideda list of assisted living communities. It’s important to note that anybody that works with theAging Life Care Association cannot accept referrals through any provider. So assisted living,nursing homes, every referral we make is unbiased in the best interest of our clients. So does thatmean that you don’t get paid by them? I get paid directly by the client or their family members.There are some services out there that claim that their services are free, but nothing in life isfree. So in my world, sorry, I’ll never cut you off again.In my world… you know we call that a fiduciary right somebody that has to act in your bestinterest that is there and you know we people pay us to be their advisor so that we can be is itthe same does that translate the same in your world yes okay yes absolutely because what i’m doingwhen i work with a family is looking at the entire picture and making a plan and guiding them withtheir best interest in mind and we were starting to talk about the example i was working with afamily and provided a list of assistance living communities all very very different communities andi suggested we look at these communities and there was a reason why for each one the family was ina rush to get their loved one placed and chose the first community without seeing the othersseveral months later i got a call from my client’s son saying hey we got a problem what’s theproblem we’re hemorrhaging money We’re at the highest level of care in this assisted livingcommunity. They’re also requiring that we have a 24-hour aid. We’re looking at well over $30,000a month. Hemorrhaging money, truly hemorrhaging money. And there was no plan for care when themoney ran out. So this community had the money run out, they wouldn’t have been able to stay?Correct. She would have had to find a Medicaid bed in a nursing home, which we have a bed shortagein Connecticut. Finding a Medicaid bed would probably mean it would not be at their first choice ofa facility. That seems like a very delicate way of putting it. Yes, trying to. So what we did is weimmediately stopped, and we had a conversation about this and said, all right,let’s look at those other communities that I had recommended, and we specifically went to onecommunity. Went to that one community. Mom was able to go into assisted living at this community.not have a private aid, eventually transition to nursing home level of care,and did not have to worry about making a move and having yet another family crisis of having tomove her. Wow. So seems like relatively decent advice.Okay. I’d like to think so. Got it. I’d like to think so. So when do most people call you?Like, what’s the trigger? Like, what’s the thing that says, all right, now let’s call Kate? Sure.So I don’t market my services. That’s intentional. I’ve had my business for nine years. Everythinghas been word of mouth for me. I like it that way. I like that I am a one-person show because ofthe type of situations we’re dealing with are very sensitive topics. So I understand that workingwith people, it’s not a nine-to-five kind of job. on holidays,at night, on the weekends. I’ve been known to be at Hartford Hospital on a holiday with a clienthelping to advocate for their wishes. It’s part of this field and I understand that.So I really enjoy keeping my business manageable and enjoy having referrals come to me.A lot of them come from previous clients talking about our relationship that we had together and Itruly look at everyone as family. It’s important to me just because of how sensitive these topicscan be. I get that. And so you don’t mind me putting you on local television to mess that up andtake away all the referral. You’re welcome, Father. Thanks. Thanks. Appreciate that. No, no. That’swhat I’m here for. I just want to, here’s the business model that I like. Thank you, Ben, forchanging. You’re welcome. I just, I try and do my best. Absolutely. But I will say if I amoverloaded, I do have other professionals that I can refer to. I always tell people when they reachout to me that we’re not one size fits all, that they should interview. other people and make surethat they find someone that fits their needs and my style may not be for everyone and i’m alwayshappy to share referrals and recommendations cool all right so one more quick question before thebreak sure what are the early signs right the things that people should be watching for with theirparents in that situation what are the things that like they should be aware of yeah that’s athat’s a great question because a lot of times people will come home on a holiday and it’s likewhoa there there’s been a big change here things that can happen that you may not think of rightopen the refrigerator check the milk the milk i’ve done this with other clients the milk is fourweeks old it’s in the fridge there’s food spoiling or there are dirty pots and pans with food thatwere never cleaned there’s sudden rapid weight loss because someone may be forgetting to eathygiene your mom or dad’s hygiene may be changing may have a stack of unpaid bills piling up all ofthose things are signs to reach out to someone like myself to help have a conversation start aconversation about what can be done to support mom or dad that’s great thank you so listen we we’llbe right back with more including the question nobody wants to ask what does this actually cost andhow do you pay for it And remember, our team is always available at Fuchs Financial to talk throughretirement planning. Just good info, no sales pitch. We’ll be back after the break.Congratulations, Nancy and Mark. You’ve been chosen to play the retirement game. All right,first question. How long will you live? Too slow. Spin the longevity wheel.Nancy, will inflation eat your savings alive? I hope not. Let’s spin the slot machine and find out.Which strategy will you pick? At Fuchs Financial, we don’t spin wheels. We build real plans.Personalized, adaptable, and clear.Welcome back to How to Retire. I’m Ben Fuchs, and we’re here with my old friend, old friend KateTice from Compassionate Choice Connecticut. Kate is an expert on elder care and a good friend.Kate, let’s talk about what care actually looks like. So I think about,and I kind of like dread this conversation with my family. But what are the conversations?that families should have before there’s an emergency. What does that look like?Great question. An important conversation to have.The most important piece is understanding who are the decision makers. Before a crisis situation oremergency arises, it’s important to know if something were to happen, who’s in charge?Who’s going to pay the bills? Who’s going to make medical decisions for you should you not be ableto for a period of time? As well as what are your wishes? And that is a really important piece.I always talk about the importance of wishes and have to educate children about that as well quiteoften because what they may want for mom or dad, mom or dad may not want. And until a court deemsus incompetent, meaning we can’t safely make our own decisions, we can all make our own decisionsas long as they are safe and we are not putting ourself or other in harm’s way.Okay. So understanding what a person wants, and that includes things such as a DNR,a do not resuscitate order, versus… code it also includes something like a living will what yourwishes are should you be in a situation in a hospital where those conversations need to happen andso yeah you would so you would say that those are the documents that people need to have in advancenow by the time they call you is it often that they don’t have those i mean is it is it also i meanyou know you talk about a living will and you know powers of attorney come into play there alsothis is your elder care attorney background thank you very much um how often do you help familieswho disagree about what’s best for a loved one so if they don’t have these documents and i mean isit often to have two people disagreeing over what they want for mom and dad yes yes i can give youa great example that recently happened i had a client who was diagnosed with a very aggressivecancer she made it very clear she did not want to pursue any treatment or any further opinions.She wanted to approach this from more of a hospice point. Which means what?It means focusing on comfort, quality of life and comfort, which the word hospice in itself can bevery scary for a lot of people. It doesn’t have to be scary. It’s something I’m very passionateabout. This woman’s son was fully supportive of her wishes.The daughter, not so much. The daughter was calling around trying to get appointments at DanaFarber, Sloan Kettering, trying to get other opinions. She really was not ready to let mom makethat decision. It took us quite a bit of time and education, and it’s a very emotional time forfamilies. But ultimately, we were able to allow the client to have the last chapter of her lifethat she wanted.It seems so incredibly difficult.We talk about financial preparedness.And one of the things that I think is one of the biggest stressors for people, you know, we canhave some idea of what the taxes are. We understand Social Security to agree. We can understandspending. We can control that. But it just feels like this health is the thing that we really like.It’s a wild card. And we have no idea how it’s going to be. How does financial stress impactfamilies during these situations? Massively. Absolutely impacts families tremendously.The cost of care in nursing homes, you’re seeing about $525 per day on average.I’ve seen some as much as $700 a day. And a lot of people think that Medicare will pay for anursing home. It doesn’t. And that is very stressful when people start to quickly add those costsup in their head. It’s a tremendous amount of stress, which is important for people to have someonelike you on their side. Oh, thanks. You’re welcome. I did not pay, Kate. All right. So one of thethings we talk about also a lot is that, you know, right now the generation, right now in theworkplace as they get older are the sandwich generation, right? They’re still taking care of kidsor paying for college or paying off student loans and also paying for their parents. How do yousupport people who are trying to balance both things? The most important piece is tellingcaregivers. especially in the sandwich generation, that self-care is mandatory.It’s not optional. And I like to use the analogy of when we’re on an airplane and they talk aboutif the oxygen mask pops down, put your oxygen mask on before you can help others.I use that a lot with caregivers, that if you’re not taking care of yourself, you can’t take careof your loved ones. So a couple years ago, I got a call from my mom.And she said, hey, you got to go check on dad. He hasn’t gotten out of bed today.I’m like, what are you talking about? It’s like one o’clock in the afternoon on a Friday. Dad peesevery 12 seconds. Like, how could he not have gotten out of bed by one in the afternoon? You’rewelcome, dad. Anyway, so I go over to my parents’ house at that point when they were still livingin Connecticut before they abandoned us for Florida. They were just a couple blocks away,a couple miles away. And on over. And, you know, I let myself in. Dad,he’s still in the bedroom. What’s going on? Ah, my leg hurts. I’m OK. I’m like,have you gotten out of bed? He’s like, no, I’m all right. It hurts to get out of bed. I’m like,well, you’ve got two options. Mom wants me to take you to the hospital. So either you can either Iwill pick you up and lift you and carry you down the stairs to get you to the hospital, or we cancall the ambulance and have them pick you up to take you to the hospital. And he said, well, youcan’t call the ambulance. If you get dirt on mom’s rug, she’ll kill me. And I’m like,oh, OK, that’s what we should be thinking about right now. That makes sense. So I went to go pickhim up. And he screamed in pain. And I’m like, screw it. We’re going to the hospital. So we end upat a local hospital that won’t be named. And, you know, first it was like I had to argue with themthat they thought he had a leg strain. Or he had pulled a hamstring or something because he hadplayed tennis the day before. I’m like, no, no, no. This guy’s had two open heart surgeries. Heunderstands what pain is. This isn’t a leg strain. And as it turns out, he ends up having sepsis inthe blood. And dad has a pacemaker. And so there’s a certain point where if I had gotten too far,that would have been the end. And here I am, like, knowing nothing about anything medical, havingto argue with a doctor. And I don’t really have a problem arguing with most people. But that was…What I felt like, man, I barely know this stuff. And then, you know, I don’t really pay attentionwhen somebody talks about meds. It goes in one ear and out the other. It doesn’t have a landingspot for me. But I remember vividly there was a point where it was like 2 o’clock in the morning.The nurse is coming in to give my father meds. And he’s telling the nurse, no, no, no.I’ve already gotten those because he understood this. And I felt like, oh, man, you know, somebodygave me this medicine two hours ago. I was supposed to only get these every 12 hours. And she wasinsistent that he get it until he made her look at the chart and then, oh no, you’re okay.Nothing scared me more. Because had he not been paying attention and I failed as an advocate,is that like, where does Kate’s role come into a scenario like that? It’s important to be able toself-advocate or have someone that can serve in that role because of what you’re talking about.These issues happen all the time. I will share another. quick story with you.I had a client at a local hospital and went into his room and he was very physically compromised,but mentally he was absolutely brilliant to the point where everybody in his nursing home wouldfight to be on his trivia team because he knew everything. He was amazing. And I walked in the roomand the physician started asking me questions and I said, no, no, please address my client.Took one look at my client and went back to me and i said no address him please so finally thephysician looks at me and says i’m gonna give him a memory test please do he answered every singlequestion with his sarcastic wit it was awesome so finally the physician was talking to my clientabout his wishes and his concerns It’s important to have somebody there that knows you,that knows your wishes, and that can help look at these things like the medications and understand,no, I had this 12 hours ago. To be able to do that,to challenge. You need to challenge. If you are uncomfortable in a situation, absolutely questionand challenge. Because mistakes can happen every day. And having someone like myself can come in,can help with the communication. Let’s just say your parents were in San Francisco and you neededsomebody because you’re in Connecticut. What do you do? Having a care manager can be that boots onthe ground person. They can be speaking with you, making sure that things are done to your parents’wishes, have you on FaceTime with the physicians. They can help with that communication piece.Cool. Thank you. A few things I think are more important than having somebody that actually,I mean, care manager, but actually does care about the people in front of them. That is an advocatethat wants someone to recover and wants what’s in their best interest. And I just think that yourclients must be so incredibly grateful to have you working with them. We’re going to wrap this uphere quick after the next break. We’ve got one more segment where I’m going to ask my old highschool friend some more questions that hopefully will not make me cry. Look forward to seeing yousoon after the break. Weknow the market is going to get worse from here. This is the biggest monthly decline in 10 yearsfor people’s 401ks today. My investments are tanking. My retirement isn’t going as planned.I can’t believe I let my kid talk me into buying crypto. I mean, what is that anyway? This was thefourth worst contraction in history. So how are you two doing? Your financial future doesn’t haveto be uncertain. Plan your retirement right. Call now for your own complimentary portfolio reviewand tax analysis.Welcome back to How to Retire. We’ve been learning about elder care with a foremost expert inConnecticut, Kate Tice, the founder of Compassionate Choice in West Hartford. We’ve talked a lotabout conversations with families, with kids, with parents. A lot of my clients don’t have that.A lot of my clients are, what is that term, solo ager. So tell me about that and tell me how youcan help with that. I actually, one of my all-time favorite clients was a solo ager.She came to me with absolutely no support, no friends. She was, I’m going to say spicy.I think that would be your specialty. Absolutely. Absolutely loved her. She had no one.She had her lawyer, and her lawyer approached me about her situation,and she was very afraid because she did not have anybody to help her.through challenges that come with aging. So figuring out living situations,financial pieces. It was something that I was able to partner with her lawyer on.Her lawyer did all the financial pieces. I took on the healthcare pieces. And again, she was verysharp. She spoke seven languages, traveled the world. incredible she was someone where her nursinghome would call me and say she’s 92 she’s refusing to sign a DNR and I said okay what what do youwant me to do about that have her sign the DNR no do I agree with her wish no but it’s my job torespect and honor that and I would say ask her ask her what a DNR is and she knew and she was ableto tell them no I I want to be a full code. You have to respect that.So she was someone that I helped move in. How often do, sorry, how often do elder care places wantpeople to sign DNRs? That seems like a weird. request to make it’s something that is reviewed tomake sure that people understand what it means and if they have a pretty significant health historythe conversation will come up it’s not always a comfortable one to have yeah for sure but in thecase of this particular client we made numerous moves for her as she continued to age i had her forseveral years and she again was spicy and would not hesitate to yell at me um i overheard her inthe nursing home someone said to her who is that as i was running around setting up her apartmentgetting everything set up and she said oh i i forget what her title is but she’s like my daughterand that was the best compliment that I ever could have. She would never say it’s my face.Of course not. But that was truly a wonderful story that still sticks with me and made me in thatmoment realize I’m doing the right thing. Yeah. I mean, so I think that brings us to peace of mind,right? And so when they work with Compassion Service, when they work with you, whether it’s a soloagent or a family, what kind of peace of mind can people expect? So I come into things.very compassionate, empathetic and non-judgmental. Every family situation is different and that’simportant. I make sure that people feel heard and understood and I always say You know your parentsor your loved one better than I do. And if I need to shift my focus, let me know.Communication here is key. Let’s make sure that we’re keeping the lines of communication open.It’s important. It’s important so that I understand how I can help people, especially with olderadults. I like to say that my goal for older adults is to give people the best last chapter oftheir lives. Love that. All right. Listen, we’ve only got about a minute or so left.What message would you like viewers to remember most about planning ahead and supporting the peoplethey love? What’s like the one thing that you want someone to take away from this conversation? Theconversations don’t have to be scary with your loved one. Having these conversations about wishesand planning don’t have to be scary. Think of it as making a plan to empower yourself and yourloved ones so that you can focus on. quality of time together. Thank you.Listen, we talk a lot at Fuchs Financial about Social Security planning, timing,income, investments, 401ks, taxes, elder care, estate planning,everything in between. But, you know, the reality is that nothing is more important than yourhealth. And Kate from Compassionate Choice Connecticut, thank you so much for being with us.If anything Kate said today rang true for you or for your family, You got some contact informationthat’s available for her. But take this as a sign to stop putting it off, to get started. And ifthe financial side of that planning is part of what you need help with, Fuchs Financial is ready tohave that conversation as well. I’m Ben Fuchs, plan smart, retire happy. We’ll see you next week.
