As clients get older, their health and financial concerns tend to multiply. Among the issues that should be addressed near and through retirement are needs like developing elder care funding strategies, arranging health care and financial documents, creating an estate plan and considering Medicare strategies.
“When most people get to the age where they are ready for Medicare, people deluge them with information about the program’s basic framework and all the products that could fit into that framework,” says Sloane. “Consumers are bombarded by pharmacy plans and Medicare supplements and specialized coverage. None of this information talks about how to determine which plan works best for which client, it’s all about how these products fit in with Medicare. If the recipient of the information doesn’t understand how the plans and Medicare work together in practice, the information isn’t going to be useful.”
For example, few individuals are educated about the portability of their Medicare coverage, says Sloane. While traditional Medicare is portable across state lines, Medicare Advantage plans may not follow an individual as they travel.
Tying the health care lifecycle together is the caregiving continuum, the cycle by which parents care for young and/or disabled children, spouses care for each other, and children care for aging parents. HealthStyles.net emphasizes caregiving by making it the first area of concentration for its modules.
“Everybody, at a minimum, will receive care throughout their life, but more likely than not they’re also going to end up giving care to a spouse, or to children, or to parents at some point or throughout their life,” says Sloane. “That’s an important concept that people need to understand.”
HealthStyles.net addresses risk management directly via a module that discusses the unpredictability of health care and steps that can be taken to mitigate unknowns like if and when cognitive decline will occur, who in the family will need care first and whether a family’s assets will be sufficient to across the duration of their caregiving needs.
Health care communications are also addressed via the educational modules. While issues like discussing health care plans among family members, making caregiver decisions and drafting documentation to clarify end-of-life choices are covered, Sloane says that communication needs to be thought of on a more practical, elemental level.
“Health care communication can be as simple as establishing a communications tree,” says Sloane. “Not having a communications plan becomes extremely burdensome for caregivers, it’s a logistical nightmare. They need to have a plan for how to tell people information ahead of time.”
The portal also provides modules on elder abuse and senior housing. At the end of each module, a list of resources guides users towards additional information and assistance.
Users of HealthStyles.net can access a secure, compliant health care and planning document vault to ease communications.