17: What Women Need to Know About Long-term Care

What the heck is long-term care and why should we care?   Only 12% of women feel highly knowledgeable about long-term care and only 27% have a plan to fund it despite the fact that 50% of women expect to require it.   The first thing to note is that, when we talk about long-term care, we're not talking about medical care or health insurance. Long-term care (also known as custodial or even unskilled care) is about having assistance with personal tasks and what's referred to as "activities of daily living" (ADLs)—the stuff you need to do to just exist.   The six primary ADLs are: bathing, dressing, eating, transferring (i.e., getting out of bed onto a chair), toileting, and continence. There is also an additional seventh item that is often brought up: cognitive decline.   40% of individuals aged 65 and up will need long-term care at some point in their lives. That number is 60% for 75-year-olds and up. Statistics also show that, for several reasons, women tend to need long-term care more than men.   Listen in and learn actionable strategies that you can use today to start preparing for the possibility that you or your loved ones will need long-term care.   Key Topics: The common long-term care story (1:12) What long-term care is not and what it really encompasses (4:20) The six (plus one) ADLs (6:22) Startling statistics regarding long-term care (7:49) "Doesn't the government take care of this? Doesn't Medicare cover it?" (9:17) How should you prepare for long-term care? (13:47) What are the costs? (17:05) A primer on long-term care insurance (21:13) The three types of people when it comes to long-term care (26:28)   If you like what you've been hearing, we invite you to subscribe on your favorite platform and leave us a review. Tell us what you love about this episode! Or better yet, tell us what you want to hear more of in the future. [email protected]   You can find the transcript and more information about this episode at www.takebackretirement.com.   Follow Stephanie on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn.  Follow Kevin on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn.