Senior Care Lessons from Florida and Texas

With the recent hurricanes coming through Texas and Florida, there has been a renewed focus on providing safeguards for those receiving senior care. Florida was especially impacted in this regard because of the fact that it has the nation’s highest percentage of those age 65 and older that reside there. Because of this and the unique situation that these states find themselves in, we can learn much to help our own areas improve care.

 

With all of the concerns about safety that exist, there’s still a huge concern when it comes to the cost of care. About 75 percent of those interviewed in Florida said that they were concerned about the cost of a nursing home stay. 44 percent of women said that they were “very concerned” about this cost. Because women have a higher life expectancy, on average, this is a bigger issue for them, highlighting the greater degree of concern.

 

It’s also worth pointing out a few other things that were present on this survey of Floridians. Perhaps the most telling is that the age group that was most concerned by the costs of senior care were those age 55 to 64. This might seem like a young age to have this kind of concern as this group rarely needs senior care yet. And that’s the whole point. This group rarely needs care, but they are the demographic that is most likely to be setting up and organizing care for a parent. Because of this, they have first hand experience with just how complicated this whole process can be, and they are old enough that they know that there’s a good chance they will be in a similar situation in the future.

 

Senior care can be improved over time as we learn from situations like the recent hurricanes.

 

Also not surprisingly, it was the middle income bracket that was most concerned about the costs of care. These are people that would not qualify for Medicaid, but were not making enough to make the costs of care an easily handled burden. This is a group that desperately needs some sort of relief when it comes to costs. If you find yourself in this situation, be sure that you look into programs that can help reduce your family’s costs well before it becomes an urgent need. The sooner this is addressed, the less likely it is to be a problem when care is needed.

 

Hurricanes Irma and Harvey were certainly tragic occurrences. The loss of lives and property that occurred, along with the disruption of safety and security were devastating in their scope. But it would be foolish of us not to look at these events and learn from them. While we can’t reverse much of the damage that’s already been done, we can certainly make improvements moving forward. This goes for our own towns and cities, and it also goes for the checks and safety measures that we have in place when it comes to senior care. Emergency situations are truly horrible, but they can give us helpful ideas of how to keep improving so that our parents, our own generation, and the future have a better senior care system than what’s in place now.

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