Demand for home health care for retirees spikes during pandemic

About This Episode

In 2020, the pandemic hit retirement communities and nursing homes especially hard, causing many retirees to reconsider their futures. In our client base, we’ve seen an increase in people wanting to age in place, in their own homes, which comes with new considerations for their personal lives and finances and often those of their loved ones. In these cases, assessing your portfolio to ensure you can afford the home health care services you desire is critical.

Andrew De Four joins on today to talk about the world of home care services and the impact that these services can have on a family’s finances and wealth. Andrew is a Chartered Professional Accountant, and he has worked for over 15 years in various senior finance roles for many large national and global companies. Seeing the struggles that many people face with managing a career and taking care of an ageing parent at the same time, Andrew decided to start his company to address these challenges. Customized Homecare is a Montreal-based private home care agency serving over 500 seniors and their families in Montreal and in the Eastern Township.

On this episode, Andrew and I talk about the pros and cons of the various options for senior care, how the pandemic has impacted senior care residences, the cost of home care, subsidies and programmes you may qualify for that can help with the financial side of senior care, how to manage your loved ones’ resistance to receiving care, and so much more!

Thank you for listening!

Key Topics:

• How Customized Homecare helps families (1:11)
• The main problem families face with senior care (2:58)
• Different care options families can explore (4:03)
• How home care needs tend to evolve as a person gets older (5:31)
• The types of clients Customized Homecare serves (7:45)
• Responsibilities of The Sandwich Generation (9:37)
• Deciding between home care services and other senior care options (11:38)
• The positive impact of companionship (13:21)
• Working with seniors to overcome the resistance to home care (14:08)
• The failing of senior care facilities to control the spread of COVID-19 (16:12)
• Long-term implications of switching a loved one from an assisted living facility to home care (17:10)
• Supplementing an assisted living arrangement with home care services (19:10)
• The main factors that affect the cost of home care (21:01)
• A case study of home care needs for a senior couple (21:26)
• The physical and emotional impact of being a primary caregiver (22:31)
• The cost of introducing home care to relieve a natural caregiver (23:35)
• Home care services where safety is compromised (25:04)
• Factoring home care costs into financial projections (26:37)
• Where families can find support for funding home care services (28:28)
• Programmes available through Revenu Québec (30:15)
• Why it’s crucial to seek counsel about subsidies and programmes you may be qualified for (31:49)
• What you can learn from the How to Communicate with Someone Living with Dementia virtual webinar (33:23)
• And much more!

Mentioned in this Episode:

• TakeBackTheirDignity.ca
• How to Communicate with Someone who is Living with Dementia Virtual Conference
• CLSC
• Tulett, Matthews & Associates
• Keith Matthews’ Book | The Empowered Investor: A Guide to Building Better Portfolios