Aging in Place & Home Safety

The hourly rate on a caregiver’s business card isn’t the real price difference between hiring directly and going through an agency.

Original Medicare won’t pay toward a hearing aid itself, but a 2022 FDA rule and some Medicare Advantage plans now fill in parts of that gap.

A Matter of Balance and Tai Chi for Arthritis for Fall Prevention are structured exercise classes seniors can often take free at a senior center or at no extra cost through a Medicare Advantage fitness benefit.

An occupational therapist walks through your bathroom, points at the tub, and says you need a grab bar. Medicare paid for her visit. It will not pay for the bar.

Frank Alvarez had already qualified for Medicaid’s Money Follows the Person program for two months before anyone at his nursing facility mentioned it existed.

Original Medicare won’t pay for a ride to a routine doctor’s visit. A membership in a local senior village often does, for a fraction of what private help costs.

A patient lift, a hospital bed, or a shower chair can cost hundreds of dollars, and Medicare often will not touch the bill. Every state runs a federally funded program that loans or gives away that same equipment instead.

Dolores has climbed the same eleven stairs for forty years. A nurse-and-handyman program called CAPABLE rebuilt her bathroom for under $1,300, but only because her state’s Medicaid waiver happened to fund it.

Ruth Feldman has lived in the same Yonkers apartment cooperative for over thirty years, and a nurse now checks her blood pressure in the lobby twice a month without her ever having to move.

Every state runs a free, confidential advocate for nursing home and assisted living residents under federal law, and it is not means-tested like most benefits on this site.