Tag: Elder Care

FEATURE
Medicare: A Comprehensive Guide with Joanne Giardini Russell (Ep.15)

Medicare: A Comprehensive Guide with Joanne Giardini Russell (Ep.15)

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After the successful release of “Understanding Medicare: A Guide for Beginners,” Michelle was prompted to ask Joanne Giardini Russell back to the show to provide a deeper look into Medicare.

Let’s gain further knowledge about how to make informed decisions regarding your healthcare and insurance options as Michelle and Joanne discuss: 

  • Recommendations to prepare for Medicare six months before eligibility 
  • Seek professional guidance to avoid common enrollment mistakes
  • The importance of annually reviewing your drug plans
  • Growing concerns surrounding predatory marketing/scams 
  • The Inflation Reduction Act and its impact on pharmaceuticals 
  • And more

Resources:

Connect with Michelle Gessner: 

Connect with Joanne Giardini Russell:

About Joanne Giardini-Russell:

Joanne Giardini-Russell is the owner of Giardini Medicare, an independent agency that provides Medicare products to the public. She and her team of Medicare nerds at Giardini Medicare specialize in the “transition” to the Medicare system. Do you need Medicare? If so, how do you get there in a stress-free and logical fashion? Having spent years in the financial and insurance industries, Joanne recognized an enormous and unfilled niche. Namely, the lack of quality education and assistance in “best practices” in getting yourself into the Medicare system.

She and her team of agents have grown a firm that can help assess the “Do I need Medicare,  how do I get it, how does it work” questions and more. They assist in the transition from the workplace era and into the Medicare years and enroll people in the proper Medicare products. 

Joanne routinely leads Medicare sessions for financial advisors, CPAs, Credit Unions, and the public. Additionally, she often writes Medicare content for publications and websites such as  Advisor Perspectives, SixtyandMe.com, and InsuranceNews.Net. She and Cameron Giardini produce the “Transition to Medicare” Podcast. , He produces the company’s YouTube channel while she handles TikTok. The company website is https://gmedicareteam.com/ 

Joanne resides in Michigan with her husband, Jeff. Three of her adult children work with her at Giardini Medicare; creating what they affectionately refer to as the “First Family of Medicare”.  

FEATURE
Planning Beyond Today: A Look at Long-Term Care Planning (Ep. 7)

Planning Beyond Today: A Look at Long-Term Care Planning (Ep. 7)

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Don’t wait for tomorrow, next week, or next month to figure out your long-term care plan. Now is the time to equip yourself with knowledge so you can properly plan for your future. 

In this thought-provoking episode, Michelle Gessner, CFP® and host of the Retire To A Life You Love® podcast walks listeners through long-term care options and possible scenarios that could affect you and your family.

If planning for long-term care frightens you, or you think you’re simply not old enough to plan, you need a reality check. Every day, we are all getting older, and the fact of the matter is most people are not financially ready for what could possibly happen as they age.

Join Michelle as she tackles common questions regarding long-term care, provides invaluable insight from the perspective of a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional, and shares some startling statistics about our aging population.

Gain information for yourself or to share with your family about:

  • The various types of long-term care available; assisted living, nursing homes, adult daycare, and at-home nursing care. 
  • Startling statistics that will propel you to take long-term care planning seriously
  • The expenses associated with long-term care, including discussions around Medicare and Health Insurance
  • What is long-term care, and how to know if you or a loved one requires assistance
  • How the latest insurance policies work that may be less expensive than you thought
  • And more!

Resources:

Connect with Michelle Gessner: 

About Michelle Gessner: 

As a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional, Michelle is passionate about building a life plan for her clients and helping them see that they have choices, which often comes to them as a pleasant surprise. She is an independent thinker and a huge advocate of her client’s interests. Her greatest joy is working to do what is right for them and be their voice.

Michelle has a B.S. in Finance from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and an M.S. in Management from Boston University, Brussels. Growing up in Montana and moving to Colorado for college, she took out student loans and worked her way through all four years. After graduating in 1987 with honors, she accepted a job at Shell Oil in Houston, and worked her way up the corporate ladder to a management position before leaving in 1992 for Brussels, Belgium, where she lived for 4 years. In Brussels, she learned about different cultures and basic conversational French as well as pursuing and earning a graduate degree in management. 

As a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional,  she is held to the highest standards set forth in the industry. She surrounds herself with a back office of experts in tax and investment research so that her clients have the best of both worlds – the resources of a large firm with the caring, dedication, and personal service of a small firm. 

FEATURE
Estate Planning and the Possibility for Long-Term Care with Kim Hegwood (Ep. 6)

Estate Planning and the Possibility for Long-Term Care with Kim Hegwood (Ep. 6)

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Aging is a reality that none of us can escape, and planning for it can be daunting. 

In this episode, Kim Hegwood, Owner and Managing Attorney of Your Legacy Legal Care, emphasizes the importance of planning for long-term care, regardless of age.

Through her extensive experience, Kim has seen firsthand the financial and emotional toll of not planning for the realities of aging. She stresses the value of having options in a long-term care crisis and highlights the benefits of utilizing hybrid Long Term Care insurance as an alternative to traditional long-term care insurance.

Kim discusses:

  • Why she recommends all her clients plan for long-term care early to have options and avoid crisis planning
  • Why no one should rely heavily on Medicaid for long-term care
  • Hidden long-term care expenses 
  • The options for long-term care available
  • And more

Resources: 

 Connect with Kim Hegwood:

Connect with Michelle Gessner: 

About Michelle Gessner: 

As a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional, Michelle is passionate about building a life plan for her clients and helping them see that they have choices, which often comes to them as a pleasant surprise. She is an independent thinker and a huge advocate of her clients’ interests. Her greatest joy is working to do what is right for them and be their voice.

Michelle has a B.S. in Finance from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and an M.S. in Management from Boston University, Brussels. Growing up in Montana and moving to Colorado for college, she took out student loans and worked her way through all four years. After graduating in 1987 with honors, she accepted a job at Shell Oil in Houston, and worked her way up the corporate ladder to a management position before leaving in 1992 for Brussels, Belgium, where she lived for 4 years. In Brussels, she learned about different cultures and basic conversational French as well as pursuing and earning a graduate degree in management. 

As a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional,  she is held to the highest standards set forth in the industry. She surrounds herself with a back office of experts in tax and investment research so that her clients have the best of both worlds – the resources of a large firm with the caring, dedication, and personal service of a small firm. 

About Our Guest:

Kim Hegwood, born in Bay City, is an Elder Law and Estate Planning Attorney based in Houston, Texas. Kim has been a practicing Attorney since she graduated from South Texas College of Law in 1996. After watching her grandparents struggle to maintain their independence as they grew older, trying to navigate the challenges of aging, and deal with the legal, financial, and emotional challenges that our loved ones face in their golden years, Kim dedicated her career to helping families preserve their dignity and protect their assets.

Kim started her own law firm in 1998 so she could practice law her way – with a focus on family. Kim is passionate about educating her clients, helping them choose legal strategies that will achieve their goals and help them age with security and dignity. As a mother of three, Kim enjoys spending most of her free time with her children and grandchildren when she is not volunteering at one of her favorite charities.  

Kim’s practice focuses exclusively on Elder Law, Asset Protection, Estate Planning, Medicaid Crisis Planning, Probate, and Guardianship. By witnessing what her grandparents endured, and with a growing number of Dementia diagnoses, Kim understands what her clients are going through and dedicates herself and her practice to treating each of her clients as if they were her own family. Kim takes pride in helping families after facing a diagnosis of Dementia to help avoid a costly guardianship process. Kim continues to expand her practice to better serve the needs of individuals throughout their golden years. 

Between personal experiences and being a member of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, Kim and the team at Your Legacy Legal Care™ have the experience and expertise to assist you and your family to ensure peace of mind and the utmost quality of life.