Aged Care Concessions For All

Have you investigated every aged care tip that’s come along? Have you read and learn about a dozen different income/asset concessions, perhaps attended several different information events, but the truth is you just can’t seem to know exactly how these concessions work (or if they are worth your time and effort). Perhaps you’re even feeling a little frustrated with yourself and in your inability to find even one valuable concession which you’re eligible for and how you can lower your aged care costs by thousands of dollars a year for that same bed you already occupy. You feel like every dollar will be squeezed out of you, before they’ll finally reduce your aged care fees.

The Common Aged Care Struggle

Mary came to us because her mum, Rachel, has been in an aged care home for the last 12 months and her aged care fees were taking huge bites out of her hard saved money. By the time Mary saw us, she has only been paying the basic fees (which everyone pays) and a means-tested care fee as advised by the Department of Human Services, but not another dollar more. As such, Rachel had a debt of $15,240 from outstanding daily accommodation payments (DAP). Even if the debt was to be paid off, Rachel was still facing a negative cash flow. You see, this was because Rachel’s total expenses was $1,243 ($284 Lifestyle costs and $958 aged care fees) while she gets a part pension of $714 every two weeks. See the negative gap of $529 every two weeks? Although the aged care home asked Mary to pay a partial lumpsum into the deposit to reduce the DAP, Mary was uncomfortable because how much cash reserve should she set aside (in view of the substantial negative cash flow) and what’s she to do if Rachel runs out of money and the negative cash flow continues? In addition, the deposit is $375,000 while Rachel had less than this?

After 12 months of high fees and fast reducing bank balance, Mary was stressed out and made a huge complaint to the aged care facility. They told her to get financial advice, and that’s when we met Mary through a common contact (not from the age care home).

Did Her Research

Just so you’re clear in your mind, Mary works full-time as a professional dealing with financial calculations. In fact, Mary has been very careful and spent hours investigating the various aged care fees. That’s how she came to know which fees are compulsory and which are not, which she held back paying.

Thank Goodness

After analysing Rachel’s income & assets, we helped them access concessions they did not know about. As a result, Rachel’s age pension went up while her aged care fees came down. Her age pension increased from $714 to $907 every two weeks while her aged care fees reduced from $958 to $425 every two weeks. That’s a combined improvement of $723 every two weeks or $18,798 a year! In addition, we were able to help Rachel avoid a $3,588 future tax bill (payable upon death).

Your Average Older Australian

May be, you’re thinking that it’s because Rachel had a lot of assets. You see Rachel worked as low-income earner all her life and more frequent than often she deprived herself of nicer things in life. When Mary came to us, all Rachel had to her name was a shared property, which she owned outside a small town in rural Victoria (with difficulty selling) and her accumulated financial assets was worth less than $300,000. This is why Mary was extremely upset that after all those decades of thrifty living, Rachel’s hard saved money was being quickly eroded by aged care fees.

Should Mary have sought our specialist aged care advice 12 months prior, Rachel could have been $18,798 richer. However, we understand because Rachel inherited Mary’s virtue of thrift and was not sure if spending a few thousand dollars on specialist aged care advice was worth it.

We’re just happy that Mary was willingness to invest in our advice and has now result in Rachel benefiting from paying hugely discounted aged care fees with an increased age pension over many months and years to come. It is a happy chapter for both Mary and Rachel.

• We’ll explain the various types of aged care fees in simpler to understand English.
  

This is so you don’t end up like Mary, spending hours on weeknights and weekends researching on the internet. If you’re entering an aged care facility, then you’ll be time poor because of having to seek healthcare advice, visit various aged care homes, arranging the logistics of the move, and potential to declutter the family home.

• Identify if it’s better to keep certain assets or liquidate them.

So you are clear on the benefits and considerations. We helped Mary if it was in Rachel’s best interest to keep or liquidate her Super and pointed out irreversible consequences.

• Show you which income & asset concession you’re eligible for.

So you know how much money each of them are worth and if it’s worth your effort pursuing, reducing burnt weeknights & weekends on research and yet end up with even more questions.

• Tells you what are your financial rights as an aged care resident.

So you see clearly about what the aged care home is allowed and not allowed and when to charge. Although Mary did her extensive research, she was not unclear about numerous aged care financial matters.

• Point out where and how you could plan your future tax better.

Liquidating certain assets may come with tax consequences. We’ll point out what you need to think about and an estimate on how much the tax impact may be.

• Our Advice in a Written Statement.

So you don’t forget the list of issues you need to do, all the what, why, how, when. As well as the financial benefit of action vs the financial cost of inaction, to motivate you along. Beware of providers who refuse to put their advice in writing. I’ve seen too often how a cohesive family is broken by a good-hearted adult-child forgetting to address one issue out of an entire list of items (on care arrangement, home moving, home cleaning, legal documents, Centrelink, and financials).

• Guide you along your aged care journey.

Because Mary had never put any loved one into an aged care home before, she needed clarity about the journey and benefited from tips on non-financial matters. We’re not a healthcare expert by any means or measure, based on the volume of cases we’ve helped along this journey, we’ll provide direction on issues to ask and matters to consider based on past cases.

Please fill the form below, and we’ll contact you to schedule a free 30mins Aged Care Discovery call so we can find out a little more about your situation and how we can help.