Geriatric Care Management with Cheryl Theriault

This past week on our radio program, “Asset Protection Today,” on Talk Radio 850 WPTK (AM) with Attorney Bill Alexander, we were delighted to welcome Cheryl Theriault, the manager and owner of Aging Family Services.  Aging Family Services is a geriatric care management company that assists the elderly, the disabled, and those with poor health. Cheryl and her team act as elder care consultants, helping families navigate the delivery system to find services and resources.

Geriatric Care Managers can provide your family with a variety of services. They can assist adult children as they care for elderly loved ones, help caregiving spouses create emergency plans in the event of a crisis, assist seniors moving into the Triangle when family lives out of town, assist loved ones in emergencies, as well as act as a neutral party to provide advice in instances of family disagreement.

Aging Family Services of Raleigh can also provide your family with an inexpensive home care and safety assessment.  These geriatric care managers will complete a comprehensive home visit to assess your loved one’s social, environmental, cognitive, financial, and legal situation.  After contacting collateral sources, such as doctors, family members, neighbors, etc. to gather as much information as possible, Aging Family Services will complete a care plan for your loved one with short and long term goals along with recommendations. These professionals can suggest simple modifications to make your loved one’s home safer, and determine whether he or she is receiving an appropriate level of care.  The right level of home care—not too much and not too little—is often the most difficult question for a family to answer without the advice of a professional who has visited in the home and knows the particulars.  Most families who experience a long term care need are unaware of how to navigate these complex family issues and unaware of the community resources that are available to them, so our firm frequently refers clients to geriatric care managers like Aging Family Services.

Many families are shocked that their retirement nest egg is totally inadequate for the high costs of long-term care. Many advisors calculate a retirement plan for clients that will keep them in their current standard of living, but they often fail to account for the possibility of a crisis requiring $5,000-$6,000 a month in long-term care costs. Your health insurance will not cover these costs, and government assistance may not be available to you if you are above the income threshold for certain programs.  At these times your financial liquidity (access to cash) is more important than your monthly income.  This is the reason we often advise families to be very cautious in investing a portion of your nest-egg in income-annuities, which ties up your access to the cash invested in the annuity.

If you need assistance with caregiving for a loved one or anticipate that you will in the future, reach out to a geriatric care manager for assistance. Getting advice now can save you thousands of dollars, provide the support that you need, as well as help you make the right decisions regarding future care.  You can email Cheryl at Aging Family Services at Cheryl@agingfamilyservices.com, or call her at (919) 781-5979 ext. 101.

Our law firm, W.G. Alexander & Associates, is not affiliated directly or indirectly with Aging Family Services, but we recommend their services, as well as other geriatric care managers to clients.  If you or your loved one needs assistance with long-term care, or if you have questions about government assistance programs such as Medicaid or Veteran’s Benefits, consider W.G. Alexander & Associates – we offer a unique blend of asset protection, Elder Law and estate planning.  You can also attend our free seminars, learn more through our website at www.wgalaw.com, or call us at (919) 256-7000.

Attorney Bill Alexander discusses these issues and more every Tuesday morning on W.G. Alexander & Associates’ radio program, “Asset Protection Today,” on TalkRadio 850 WPTK (AM). Be sure to listen tomorrow  from 9:00-10:00 AM.  To listen to last week’s show, please visit WPTF’s on demand show blog by clicking here.