Older Americans are hit by a double healthcare whammy: more chronic and acute ailments and less insurance coverage through Medicare than they had when they were working. On average, a couple retiring today will spend $225,000 for healthcare that isn't covered by Medicare, not including long-term care. And those costs keep growing: between 2000 and 2006, the average family's health care expenses rose 80%.

With healthcare as such a pressing issue, planners are fielding a lot more calls from retirees and pre-retirees who need help to make this new math of retirement add up. There are so many nuances to the healthcare mosaic that it sometimes takes a staff of professionals to untangle it. Our podcast will give financial advisers some tools and strategies to work through what is likely to become a bigger and bigger part of their practices.

Listen online now, or download to listen at your convenience.

 

FEATURED PANELISTS:

Karen Schaeffer, along with her husband Rick, founded the financial planning firm Schaeffer Financial in Silver Spring, Maryland. Ms. Schaeffer is a frequent speaker on the topic of healthcare planning to other planners.

Louise Schroeder is a fee-only financial planner in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Together with two other planners, Mary Lacey Gibson of San Juan Bautista, Calif and Marge Randles of Argyle, New York, she formed Planned LTC, a company that provides long-term-care planning education to financial advisors and other professionals.

Kathryn McCabe Votava's company, Good Care, based in Pittsford, New York, helps consumers and businesses decode the myriad of healthcare choices and financing. Dr. Votava has a Ph.D. in health economics and nursing from the University of Rochester. She is also a registered nurse.

MODERATED BY: Pamela Black, Editor-in-Chief, Bank Investment Consultant