Money Australia – July 2017

Don’t wait for

an emergency

I

t is a familiar story among my friends.

Their ageing parents are growing

frail and need more help with daily

living. It could be triggered by ill health

or an accident but they can’t continue

as they once did. Often the elderly are

overwhelmed by the many decisions they

need to make about their finances, care

needs and housing. Many procrastinate and

things get worse.

My friends are run ragged, squeezing

in visits to their aged parents between the

demands of their work and own family.

They are often unaware that there is a wide

range of well-priced assistance that will help

the elderly remain in the family home or, if

they need to, move into a retirement village

or residential care. And in many cases

their parents would qualify for government

assistance to help fund the care.

“Agedcareishighlysubsidised,”says

Natasha Panagis, technical manager of

Aged Care Steps, a research company that

provides aged care strategy expertise to

financial planners. For example, there

Susan HelyFAMILY MONEY

Susan Hely has been a senior investment

writer at The Sydney Morning Herald. She

is author of the bestseller Women & Money.

are four levels of

home care packages

for people who qualify,

stretching from low levels

to help parents with cleaning

and driving to medical appointments,

up to the top level for intensive care.

Since the recent changes to aged home

care, you can choose the provider and the

carer, which means you can stretch your

package much further than in the past

when the funding wasn’t transparent to

the end user. For example, the fourth level

of home care is a package worth $48,906 a

year, which can buy a lot of hours of good,

well-qualified care. So if you are paying $35

an hour for a carer, you can afford around

27 hours of care a week.

But how do you get your elderly parents

to be organised about the declining years

so that their housing, care needs and

finances are all sorted out?

“It all comes down to planning ahead

with their families. People typically ignore

the warning signs and fail to plan,” says

Forward planning can take the stress

out of caring for ageing parents

Panagis. It is

often only dealt

with when there is a

crisis, but the problem

with leaving it until there

is an emergency is that you are

faced with limited options, particularly

about aged care homes. Eighty per cent of

those who go into aged care go directly

from hospital because they can’t cope alone

in their home after an illness or accident.

You want to avoid having parents placed

in residential care that is a long way from

your home.

It is common for parents to be resistant

and never want to move into aged care,

according to Panagis. “They think

that aged care is the last resort but it is

important to raise the topic slowly, bit

by bit. You need to work them up to the

idea. Some of the aged care homes are like

luxury hotels, especially the new ones.”

Ask your parents what their concerns are,

recommends Panagis.

But working out eligibility for aged care

services is not easy to navigate. Different

options have specific hurdles that include

income and assets tests. “What option they

choose will have a whole range of financial

considerations,” says Panagis. Also take

a look at the article on page 46 which has

more information on this topic.

Panagis recommends you get good

advice from experts, particularly if your

parent receives the full or part aged

pension. She also recommends families use

a placement agency to help find aged care.

It can negotiate the value of the bond and

help with the admin.

WHAT’S AVAILABLE IN AGED CARE

WHAT IT DOES NAME OF PROGRAM BENEFITS

Supports informal care Carer allowance Cash benefits to cover carers’ costs

Carer payment Cash benefits to cover carers’ absence from work

Delays residential care Commonwealth home support program Support services at home that complement independent living

Respite care Services that allow short-term accommodation

Substitutes for

residential care Home care packages

Four levels of home care from

basic to high

Residential care Residential care with high and low levels Care in an institution

See humanservices.gov.au