Have your prepared for your digital death? According to an excellent online article entitled Your Guide On Digital Death (and How to Handle It): "Digital assets and possessions can carry both sentimental and monetary value, but they aren't generally given much thought. Only 2.3% of the survey p...
The folks at ConsumerAdvocate.org have created a comprehensive guide to reverse mortgages - what they are, who they're best suited for, and their pros and cons. This guide includes rankings of various reverse mortgage companies based upon transparency & reputation, loan options and availability....
The median cost of a private nursing home room in the United States increased to $100,375 a year in 2018, up 3 percent from 2017, according to Genworth's Cost of Care survey, which the insurer conducts annually
You are turning 65 and enrolling in Medicare, but as a healthy senior do you really need to also sign up for Medicare's supplemental coverage? Not signing up initially can be very costly down the road.
Hospital patients who need additional care after being discharged from the hospital are usually sent to either an inpatient rehabilitation facility (IRF) or a skilled nursing facility (SNF). Although these facilities may look similar from the outside, Medicare offers very different coverage for...
The IRS is increasing the amount taxpayers can deduct from their 2019 income as a result of buying long-term care insurance.
Technological advances have made it easier to stay connected with loved ones all the time. This has included the ability to install cameras in a loved one's nursing home room. These so-called "granny cams" have legal and privacy implications. The benefit of putting a surveillance camera in a ...
If you are paying for your own insurance, you may think you do not need to sign up for Medicare when you turn 65. However, not signing up for Medicare Part B right away can cost you down the road. You can first sign up for Medicare during your Initial Enrollment Period, which is the seven-month...
Spouses who are turning full retirement age this year are the last group who can choose whether to take spousal benefits or to take benefits on their own record. The strategy, used by some couples to maximize their benefits, will not be available to people turning full retirement age after 2019. ...
In a recent case, North Carolina Dept. of Revenue v. Kimberly Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust (U.S., June 21, 2019), the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that North Carolina had no business taxing Ms. Kaestner, a North Carolina resident, solely because she was a future beneficiary of a trust...
Federal law requires that beginning on April 1 of the year after you reach age 72, you must begin withdrawing a minimum amount from your non-Roth individual retirement account (IRA) or 401(k) accounts. These withdrawals are called required minimum distributions (RMDs). But what if you die ...
The oldest of the 75 million baby boomers began turning 70 in 2016. Becoming a septuagenarian is a milestone in itself, but it also means that soon the IRS will likely be expecting you to start cashing out your tax-deferred retirement savings that you may have spent decades building up. ...
Inheriting an IRA may seem like a good thing, but there can be tax consequences if you aren't careful. If you inherit an IRA, you should check with an attorney or financial advisor as soon as possible to find out your options.
Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) are a popular investment tool for retirement, but they also need to be taken into account when doing estate planning. Although IRAs can be used to provide for heirs either directly or through a trust, to what extent your heirs will benefit from the IRA and ...
This eye disease is age-related, striking a significant portion of senior adults and robbing them of independent living in their retirement years. If you want to avert the development of this sight-robbing disease, called macular degeneration, you are going to have to step outside modern medicine. Eye doctors only have treatment but no prevention for this dastardly eye disease that robs senior adults of their central vision for reading, driving and watching TV.
Federal law has required certain businesses to offer family and medical leave for decades. An increasing number of states have also enacted or considered passing laws requiring businesses to offer family and medical leave. For small businesses, these laws have distinct pros and cons. This article...
Today, U.S. Senators Bob Casey (D-PA) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) applauded the decision by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to publicly release the monthly list of nursing facilities that are candidates to the Special Focus Facility program. This announcement by CMS comes on the heels of Casey's and Toomey's release of a report on under-performing nursing homes across the U.S. nursing homes.
Clients sometimes ask me whether they can authorize their healthcare agent (named in their advance directives or medical powers of attorney) to, essentially, euthanize them if their quality of life becomes intolerable. The answer is no, that would be considered murder, at least the way the laws ...
The older the population gets, the greater the potential for elder abuse. States have laws in place designed to combat elder abuse, but some states are doing a better job than others. The consumer finance website WalletHub researched the protections in place in all 50 states and the District of...
We've all heard the advice “It pays to shop around,” but this has never been more true than with the current market for long-term care insurance. According to the latest industry figures, the spread between the lowest and highest cost for virtually identical coverage was as high as 243 percent....
The number of older Americans with student loan debt – either theirs or someone else's -- is growing. Sadly, learning how to deal with this debt is now a fact of life for many seniors heading into retirement. According to a study by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the number of older...
Social Security survivor's benefits provide a safety net to widows and widowers. But to get the most out of the benefit, you need to know the right time to claim. While you can claim survivor's benefits as early as age 60, if you claim benefits before your full retirement age, your benefits w...
At the doctor's office and want to know if a procedure is covered by Medicare? There is an app for that. Medicare has launched a free app that gives beneficiaries a quick way to see whether the program covers a specific medical item or service. The "What's Covered" app allows you to search or...
Depending on which source you ask, financial losses due to elder abuse are estimated to be somewhere between $3 and $40 billion per year. One of the largest contributors to that loss is unauthorized check writing or other kinds of account tapping – sometimes by a stranger, more often by a “trusted friend...
If your child has reached the teenage years, you may already feel as though you are losing control of her life. This is legally true once your child reaches the age of 18 because then the state considers your child to be an adult with the legal right to govern his or her own life.
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