Blog

How Proactive Senior Planning Helps You Age Well

by Erin Kershaw, RN, BSN, MSA, CMC, co-founder and owner

Americans are planners. We plan what we want to do for a living, whether and when we’ll get married, whether we’ll have children and how many we’ll have, where we will live, where we will go on vacation, what we’ll do when we retire, and much more.

By definition, these plans are proactive. But there’s one chapter in life for which most people don’t plan. It’s what I call the second stage of retirement. Not the first stage, where people choose what they’ll do when they stop working ─ most of us have some ideas about that. I’m talking about the later stage, when people may need help living productive lives.

Brandywine works with clients who are already facing difficult diagnoses and in need of care and support. But some clients may have had more varied or better options if we’d been involved sooner.

For example, one West Chester client’s daughter told us she’d used up all her vacation days to take her mom on senior living community tours before learning of our company. We knew right away those communities would not have considered her mother as a resident due to her cognitive decline and financial situation. We guided her to another community that turned out to be a good fit for her mom.

This is why planning for the second stage of retirement is so critical. Over the last few years, we’ve connected with a number of healthy, active seniors who don’t need care now, but have questions such as:

• What are the costs involved when hiring caregivers, and what services do they provide?
• When is the right time to start lining up care?
• What other resources are available to help support me at home?
• Is there a “right time” to move to senior living?
• What senior living community options are best for me, and what are the different contract types?
• How can I determine what is affordable (it all seems expensive!)?
• What legal documents do I need, and when should I get them?
• What do I do if I don’t have family members nearby to help me?

If this sounds like you, check out our Proactive Senior Planning Program. Our goal is to help adults understand the options so they can plan for the future more effectively. We establish a trusting relationship and have an open line of communication to address questions or revisit the plans. Once you have a plan, it’s easy to transition into active care management when it’s needed.

Our Proactive Senior Care Planning clients have shared that they appreciate learning what their options are, having us available when there is a need, and knowing they will not be alone in the future. One client couple in Kennett Square has no local family members. Together we established a plan for their future, honoring their wishes on where and how to live if or when they need more help. The wife told me she sleeps better knowing we are here.

We’d love to discuss our Proactive Senior Care Planning program with you. Please call us at (888) 721-1975 for a complimentary phone consultation or Contact Us Here. We’ll be happy to explain how we may be a good fit for you.