Seniors In Aged Care Home can Legally Reduce Their Aged Care Expenses by using How To Access My Aged Care Concessions Plan, because it Shows You How Concessions on Income & Assets Can be Yours AUTOMATICALLY.
Seniors In Aged Care Home can Legally Reduce Their Aged Care Expenses by using How To Access My Aged Care Concessions Plan, because it Shows You How Concessions on Income & Assets Can be Yours AUTOMATICALLY.
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.
Let’s take a quick look at your situation, shall we? Write down your average monthly means-tested fee and daily accommodation payment since you’ve entered the aged care home. Then write down what you want your average costs to be. Let’s say that your average means-tested fee and daily accommodation payment combined is $2,274 a month, and you’ll be overjoyed even if you can get a 20% reduction (which is $455). That means the gap between where you are and where you hope to be is $455 per month. You’re paying a cost of $455 every month you don’t solve this problem.
This is a true story, but we’ve replaced the names to protect clients’ privacy.
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.
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 de-clutter the family home.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
You can either continue down the path of least resistance, the path you have already been traveling, or you can choose the road less travelled. The path of least resistance will probably result in you getting the same outcomes you’ve always received.
But if you want something different to happen, if you want to change the direction of your aged care costs you’re going to have to do something different. Make a new choice, and pursue your new outcome.
Fill the contact form below, schedule a free 30mins Aged Care Discovery call so we can find out a little more about your situation and how we can help.
Don’t Leave Your Aged Care Concessions Hanging
Look, we can’t promise that your aged care financial situation will improve by as much as what has benefited Mary and Rachel. But the fact is that there are concessions on income and assets waiting for you to pick them up.
The government has been tweaking eligibility rules and making access to these concessions harder almost every budget announcement since 2014. If you aren’t already benefiting from affected concessions, when the next change becomes effective, your eligibility will be based on the newer stricter rules. So Don’t Wait Too Long to Decide.
Else, you’ll end up paying thousands of dollars extra for that same bed you are already occupying (or about to occupy), just because you are not accessing concessions you may already be eligible for!
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.
No problem.
Come read about how the differences between the income & assets test calculations between age pension and aged care.