For a moment, think of a unique place you've visited — a museum, a beach, a cruise ship.  Picture the sights.  Remember the smells.  Feel the atmosphere.  Now, imagine sharing that memory with a client.  Now, quick….Do the same for a memory care unit or an assisted living facility!

Excuse me?  What's that?  You've never visited one?   So, how exactly can you realistically help clients "plan" for it?

While most in the advisory community claim to help clients implement Long-Term Care (LTC) Planning, too few can describe a private room in a memory care facility or have relationships with professionals who support families seeking care.  Without a thorough understanding of WHAT 75 million Americans are doing, they can't be planning, just guessing with better stationery.

Planning for Care Means Understanding Care

You can’t claim to have the expertise for LTC Planning if you’ve never seen it up close.  Real planning doesn’t come from a spreadsheet or a cost-of-care calculator — it comes from walking the halls, smelling the air, hearing the silence, and talking to the professionals who live this world every day.  Until you understand what care actually looks like, feels like, and costs in your community, you’re not planning — you’re just hoping the numbers take care of the reality.

If You've Never Been There, You're Not Planning

Want to see a family panic in real-time?  Wait until they need care with no guidance, no plan, and no one to call. Because your self-funding plan is essentially handing clients a checkbook and saying, "Good luck!"  The checkbook doesn’t coordinate care, schedule caregivers, move furniture, or calm a daughter at 2 AM.  That's why relationships with Home Health Care agencies, care managers, and placement specialists aren't just helpful — they're essential, and they’re the implementation team for the plan you claim to be designing.

If you work with retirees or pre-retirees — whether you're a financial planner, CPA, attorney, or advisor — the following should be mandatory professional due diligence:

• Visit a local independent living facility.
• Walk through an assisted living and memory care community
• Observe a skilled nursing facility — yes, the one attached to a hospital
• Ride along with or shadow a home healthcare agency
• Sit down with a placement advisor, geriatric care manager, or care navigator who helps real families find care options and make difficult decisions every day.

You'll learn more in 30 minutes with a local placement professional than in 10 webinars or searching for LTC providers on Medicare.gov. 

Planning Means Preparing Clients — Not Abandoning Them

Long-Term Care Planning isn’t about predicting whether a client will need care — it’s about making sure they’re prepared for everything that happens beyond writing a check. A plan that covers taxes, investments, and legal documents but ignores logistics, placement, coordination, or family impact isn’t a plan — it’s paperwork in a file cabinet.

When families are in crisis and Mom needs care, no one is talking about asset allocation or investment returns. They’re asking:

• Who do we call?

• Where does she go?

• Who’s managing this?

• What is this going to cost — emotionally, physically, and financially?

If your planning doesn’t answer those questions, you’re doing it wrong!

If You Don't Understand Care, You Can't Protect Wealth

The purpose of planning is protection:  Protection of assets....Protection of dignity....Protection of families in times of crisis.  Genuine Long-Term Care Planning starts with understanding the reality your clients will face — because none of the spreadsheets change bedsheets, none of the forms feed Dad, and nothing in the binder eases the fear when the caregiver doesn’t show up and the daughter is four hours away.

If you don’t know why you’re planning, then all your “self-funding” isn’t planning — it’s just chaos management.

When Long-Term Care is needed, will you be the advisor they thank or the one they blame?

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