Working Caregivers: The Invisible Employees

Elder Law, Medicaid Planning & Caregiver Chaos – with Eric Goldberg & Clelia Pergola

• Selma Archer & Zack Demopoulos • Season 1 • Episode 16

Share episode

If you're a working caregiver—or if you support them—you need to hear this one. In this episode, we sit down with elder law experts (and longtime friends of the show) Eric Goldberg and Clelia Pergola from the NJ Elder Law Center. Together, they drop some serious knowledge on navigating Medicaid, protecting assets, and creating real systems of support for families in crisis.

This conversation gets personal, gets practical, and—most importantly—gets to the heart of what caregivers are up against. We dive into everything from care coordination and legal documentation to family dynamics, generational friction, and what employers really should be doing to help. If you’ve ever wondered what makes elder law so crucial—or if you’ve avoided the paperwork altogether—this episode is the nudge you’ve been waiting for.

 

Episode Highlights:

[2:15] - Meet Clelia and Eric, and hear how their caregiving and legal paths became one.
[7:27] - How personal chaos led to a systemized, compassionate elder law practice.
[8:32] - Eric explains the types of cases they handle and the three phases of long-term care planning.
[12:06] - The must-have legal documents every family should prepare before a crisis.
[13:36] - What Medicaid actually covers, and why it’s often misunderstood.
[16:24] - The real challenge behind Medicaid applications—and why counties can make or break it.
[20:11] - Clelia’s powerful case for why employers should bring elder care resources to work.
[22:19] - How to have “the talk” with your parents—without a total meltdown.
[26:53] - Why geriatric care managers are secret weapons for families navigating uncertainty.
[32:59] - Debunking the myth that elder law is just for the wealthy.
[36:52] - Toughest questions families ask—and the surprising legal consequences of good intentions.
[38:20] - The sibling divide: managing conflict between hands-on caregivers and money managers.
[41:35] - Final takeaways: plan ahead, talk early, and don’t try to DIY elder care in a crisis.

Links & Resources:

 

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to follow the podcast and leave a review. Remember to check out our website at invisibleemployeeadvocates.com for more resources, and subscribe to our newsletter for updates! We’ll catch you in the next episode.

Clelia Pergola:

Is there something employers could do to help their working caregivers? I really would encourage them to go to their HR or to their boss and get a program in place that brings professionals like us directly to their workplace. Because the reality is is you don't want them going to the county during the day, mid project getting distracted, they're going to jump through a bunch of hoops, and at the end of the day, you should be able to talk to your boss. We talk about what we should do versus what life really is, but you should be able to go to your boss and tell them that you're a caregiver and you're dealing with these challenges, because, God forbid, something happens from a legal perspective, at least your cover to know that you were doing the best job possible, and you made them aware. Did you

Unknown:

know that in 2020 there were 53 million caregivers in the United States? And by 2025 this number is expected to grow to 62 point 5,000,073% of these caregivers also have a job. They are called Working caregivers, and they are invisible because they don't talk about their caregiving challenges. Working caregivers, the invisible employees, is a podcast that will show you how to support working caregivers. Join Selma Archer and Zach demopoulos on the working caregivers the invisible employees podcast, as they show you how to support working caregivers.

Zack Demopoulos:

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. We appreciate you tuning in from wherever you are. How you doing? I'm Zach Thermopolis and I'm Selma Archer. Hey, Selma, how you doing? I'm great. How are you doing? I'm awesome. As always, I'm very excited about our guests. We're going to jump right into this, because they have so much valuable content to share with us. So if you don't mind, we're going to jump right into this. I'd like to bring to the show. Clalia and Eric. Hello guys.

Unknown:

Hi. Hi everybody.

Zack Demopoulos:

We have got a jam packed show. The topic is elder care. So we're going to get right into this. Claudia and Eric, if you guys don't mind, just introduce yourselves

Clelia Pergola:

for us, absolutely. So my name is Claudia pergola. I'm a COO of the New Jersey Elder Law Center at Goldberg Law Group, and author of two books the law firm revolution and life lessons and legacy, how taking care of my grandmother changed my life. Thank you for having me on today,

Zack Demopoulos:

and I have one of those autographed. So I highly recommend that you check out those books, and we will also put links in the show notes. So for those of you who are exercising and driving and listening to us, don't worry about that. We will have links to everything mentioned in the show. Eric,

Eric Goldberg:

Hi, I'm Eric Goldberg. I'm a certified elder law attorney. I founded the practice with claliah in 2011 and we are an elder law firm. We do everything from elder law planning, which we're going to talk about today, to estate planning, guardianships, special needs, trusts, estate administration and helping the senior population.

Zack Demopoulos:

Thank you both for being here, and Selma. I got to tell you, the reason why I'm more excited than usual is that I have worked with Clelia and Eric, when I was running a home care business for 13 years. The last 10 years of that, I had the fortune of meeting them, and we've worked together in many situations. So I'm so glad you guys are here. They're friends of the podcast as well. So thank you guys. Let's get right into it. Claudia, I know your story, but I'd love for you to share it with our listeners. You are a caregiver, and your caregiver journey is a good one. Can you please share that story with us absolutely?

Clelia Pergola:

So like I said, it's in my book. I took care of my grandmother in the last six years of her life. For any of my pythons out there, my Nona, uh, grew up with her in my house. We all grew up together, so clearly, when she became ill, I had to return the fever and take care of her. So what did that look like? She fell she had her pulmonary embolism. She went into the hospital. Nowadays, we don't die of heart attacks anymore, so we come out a very different person, and that's what what happened. So it was a very personal, raw and exhausting experience, but I'm very thankful of it. It happened. It coincided when we started the firm, so we, you know, I had to go through the system, and I've realized firsthand how confusing the Medicaid rules are, the burnout of family members, the lack of coordinated support. You know, you're kind of being Ping ponged around the healthcare system, not. Of people don't care, but it's, it's a difficult system to to navigate, and there's a lot of players involved. It's unlike any other part of one's life, I feel like so you're dealing with, you know, financial institutions, attorneys, home care agencies, and you know all of that. They all have to talk to each other that they can't work in silos, and I was trying to build this firm and navigate at the same time. And you the shoe makers, kids have the worst shoes. I'm raising my hands. I'm very lucky to have Eric during that time help me and my family navigate all of this and kind of weed through. I'm definitely not emotional being an Italian woman at all. But yeah, yeah, right, dealing with the emotions, right? Because my expertise, my intelligence, my experience, it all goes out the window when your loved ones are involved and they're they're pulling out your heartstrings. So I'm lucky to have him clear the way for me and kind of look two steps ahead.

Zack Demopoulos:

I I totally can relate to that, because I've always told people that I take better care of strangers when I was running a home care business than my own mom, because I made so many mistakes with her, and it was so always an emotional Greek, Greek woman trying to try to help her, get her some care, just to follow up to that Claudia. And again, I've had experience with with various elder care firms. They're all good and professional, but you guys seem to be a little special, and I truly believe it has something to do with the fact that what you just described Claudia your caregiver journey. How do you feel like you bring that to the job? I mean, you're dealing with family, adult caregivers all the time. I mean, what skills do you feel like you bring to the table that maybe makes you guys just a little bit different from other law firms? Sure. So,

Clelia Pergola:

I mean, I think it's, we're a Yang and Yang Eric and I, I'm young, he's old, he's an attorney. I'm not, I'm Italian, he's Jewish. So we kind of, we kind of work at both ends.

Zack Demopoulos:

See Selma, why you and I work out to work together so? Well,

Selma:

yes, our story exactly,

Clelia Pergola:

we can relate to that. Yes, fun, guys,

Unknown:

always fun, always. So

Clelia Pergola:

I think my experience is the foundation of kind of how the firm operates. I feel like I took my emotional chaos and kind of built structure around it. We've developed procedures, a procedure based model that makes the legal journey for families easier, and incorporating those other things like home care and assisted living, even simple things of you know, updating your home so you can age in place all those conversations incorporated with, you know, estate planning documents, which are very important, and listening and advocating for them when they may not even know that it's needed.

Unknown:

Yeah, that's great. Thank you. Thanks for sharing that clearly. Yes. And Eric, can you just walk us through maybe some of the type of cases that you handle, some of the challenges that caregivers face? Sure,

Eric Goldberg:

sure. I just want to piggyback quickly on what Klaus said, because, you know, we don't talk about this on a daily basis, so when she started talking about her journey, it really brought a lot of things back. And it is, you know, our processes that are in place that Claudia put in place, they allow us as a team to be able to spend more time with our clients, and not just on a revenue based model. We're there to care for them, to almost work in a social worker role or a quarterback role, where we could move these pieces around without having to worry about, you know, I never go into into a meeting saying, I hope they hired like I'm just not that that type of person, and it's because we have these processes in place, and we now have a history, and I think that that clients sense that, and their family members sense that This guy is here. He's going to help and his team, they're going to help me. They're not just here to, you know, as a revenue based model. So Selma, when you were asking me what kind of what kind of cases that we see challenges? Yeah, okay, so, you know, we see all across the map. Most of the stuff that I'm doing, I'm running, really, the the, what we call the long term care planning department in the firm, or otherwise known as Medicaid planning. So the challenges are multiple. You are seeing people either who are in crisis mode. Those are people who didn't plan, right? We see, we unfortunately, see. A lot of that people who don't plan and then they say, either my loved one is now running out of money. What do we do? Or and that creates we could have a whole program on that, the various strategies that my team is going to have to employ in order to resolve that problem, or just the basic, the ones that I like doing the most, or we're getting older, so the the senior comes in, senior maybe, usually spouses say we're get we're in our 70s. How do we plan in the event that one of us has a long term care need? And that's not very challenging, because it's something that I do on a daily or weekly basis. It we there's a strategy that we employ. Obviously, every case is different, but that's a, you know, a very gratified case, because people feel really content after the planning is done, or after I explained to them what we can do. And then the middle of road is what I would call free crisis planning, where people are they have a diagnosis, or they're moving into assisted living, or there's now all of a sudden fall and they're in the hospital or in rehab, and those have their own challenges, so the challenges are really all over the map, and what we pride ourselves on in This practice, is being able to solve any one of those challenges. One of the things I'm fond of saying is, you know, when you run out of money, then you really have very few options left. And if there is some money left, we can usually be of assistance. If there's no money left, we could, of course, be of assistance to you. But we may not be able to hire a lawyer to do the things that you need to do, unfortunately, but we can, we can direct you to the right

Unknown:

people. So continuing along those lines in terms of planning, what type of documentation should be in place, what should caregivers start now getting in place in anticipation of maybe one day having to make those type of care decisions with their parents.

Eric Goldberg:

So a lot of the documents are the same for any age person that is a well, a financial power of attorney for financial decision making. In the event that you lose capacity, a health care power of attorney and living well. In case you lose capacity, somebody else will be designated to to drive that. But on top of that, those documents themselves must be specific to an aging individual. So for instance, if you have in your will, in a will that I would draft, if we're a married couple, we want to have language in there that provides for a what we call a supplemental needs trust, that is a trust that's embedded in the will in the event, when or when the first spouse passes away, we then have the opportunity to fund this trust upon their passing, which immediately protects assets, but they're not accountable For Medicaid, and that's the bare minimum I would recommend for most people who who maybe don't want to go to the next level of planning, but they do want their documents in order. The next level of planning is an irrevocable trust, and we use that very often to protect assets, and that usually requires five years before it's available, before assets are fully protected and one can apply for Medicaid.

Unknown:

So you mentioned, you mentioned earlier, I think you talked a little bit about Medicaid planning. Why is that so important? I'm

Eric Goldberg:

glad you asked. It's good to go back and talk about how Medicaid works. Of course, we don't, we don't have time in this podcast to talk about the intricacies of Medicaid. But in in short, Medicaid is, is very often the backstop for people when they have a long term care need so long term care in let's talk about New Jersey. I is, is care from a home care agency, or through an assisted living facility, or through a nursing home, skilled nursing facility, and they're diagnosis, they're extraordinarily expensive. You know what? If somebody needs 24/7 care at home, Zach, what are you talking about? $400 a day, probably minimum, right? So when you're at home in a 30 day month, you're talking about a minimum of $12,000 plus your food and your your rent, or your property taxes, utilities, all that. If you're an assisted living at a high level of care, you're going to spend 10 to 15,000 in a nursing home. You're going to spend probably 12 to 15,000 most people can't withstand that out of expense for very long. And so there is a wonderful program that the federal government and the states provide known as Medicaid. It, in essence, is the long term care insurance of the last resort. It's an insurance policy provided by the government, but you must be in. Impoverished in order to use it, and they do allow certain things, just like preparing for taxes, preparing for, you know, trying to resolve estate taxes or reducing your income taxes. There are certain allowable embedded structures in those statutes that allow people to get Medicaid, either if they're impoverished, or if they don't want to impoverish their spouse, for instance, or or they don't they want to leave money to a family member. That's

Unknown:

all. That's all very helpful, because most people, myself included, you look at that documentation and it's just too intimidating. You don't, you don't even understand what it's trying to tell you. So to have a place to go that someone like you to help, that's That's fabulous.

Eric Goldberg:

Yeah. So we do Medicaid applications too here, which, if you look, it's actually kind of interesting. I had a prospective client who went, who ended up hiring us a few weeks ago, who said, Oh, I looked at the Medicaid applications. Not that big a deal. It's only it's only a couple of pages long. The application isn't a big deal. You could fill it out in an hour, but it's all the background information that they need. They need 60 months of every bank statement, they need your deed, they need all of your and they're going to pour through all this so they're going to audit everything and then ask you questions you need. It's not for the first time. You

Clelia Pergola:

and if I could chime in, as far as the Medicaid applications are concerned, you know, the challenge that the families don't see, that we find is these programs are managed by the counties, but really by individuals. And these individuals, you know, they're not properly trained in what the program will allow. I'm not sure how they're, you know, the business end of the government and how they train their employees. But you know, you have some counties where you apply, and within 10 days, you'll get a request, and they want that request back in 10 days, and if they don't have it, they will deny you. And there are others where you're waiting three months and it's lost on someone's desk. And there are other counties where you go into a banking system and you'll get one person one month, they'll request something, it'll go back into the banking system, and then when you send something in, somebody else will get it, and it'll be fresh in their mind. So and those are, I think, are the challenges the families don't see that we can clearly navigate. We've gone so far as applying in a different county for one of our clients that didn't even live in that county, because the one county that they did live in, we knew was going to cause a major problem for this particular family and for the facility that they were at, and that poses a problem too, because we're Talking about care coordination, and you know you're dealing with which with entities that are businesses and are trying to take care of your loved one, and so you know they need to get paid, and there's sometimes a gap in coverage. And what Eric and the team tries to do is really eliminate that gap in coverage so that there's no gap in the care, right? Because then during that time of that someone's not covers pending Medicaid, they may treat your loved ones differently even though they're not supposed to. You might get an eviction notice even though you're not supposed to. You know, unfortunately, while the law is black and white, it's clearly not black and white, because it can they're it's interpreted by humans with feelings and problems and jobs. So I think those are all the other challenges that we have to deal with, for and families have to deal with.

Zack Demopoulos:

I have seen adult kids pick up the tab for that gap, because everyone thinks that this is going to be a smooth process, and they'll go right from private pay to Medicaid. And it rarely happens that way, does it?

Eric Goldberg:

Oh, yeah. So, you know, people make the mistake of thinking Medicaid like Medicare. Yeah, that is just a seamless transition. And it's, it is the farthest thing from a seamless transition? Yeah.

Zack Demopoulos:

And like you said, Eric, this, this is an hour show in itself to talk about Medicare, Medicaid, and hopefully, maybe, maybe some we can do down the road. But, but I employees, this is just another question that came to mind before we go to the next one. Employees are working their jobs, and let's say they're putting in eight hours, nine hours, sometimes 10 hours a day, and they have maybe children at home, and they have a elderly parent, they're trying to take care of what can employers do to help them with this information? What you just share with us? And I hope our listeners are really listening in, thinking, wow, I need to follow up with my county. That's. The bare minimum question to find out about the Medicaid process in my county, or, more importantly, I need to go call an elder care attorney and talk to them. But is there something employers could do to help their working caregivers? I'm

Clelia Pergola:

itching. I'm like, I have to just jump in. I would love to say to go to the county, but I really would encourage them to go to their HR or to their boss and get a program in place that brings professionals like us to directly to their workplace. Because the reality is is you don't want them going to the county during the day and mid projects getting distracted, they're gonna jump through a bunch of hoops,

Unknown:

if they could even talk to anyone there

Clelia Pergola:

and there at the end of the day, you should be able to talk to your boss. We talk about what we should do versus what life really is, but you should be able to go to your boss and tell them that you're a caregiver and you're dealing with these challenges, because, God forbid something happens from a legal perspective, at least your cover to know that you were doing the best job possible and you made them aware.

Zack Demopoulos:

Well, thank you for that. Claudia and Eric, I think there is a great opportunity for employers to do that. So the other thing that Selma and I are working on with employers, is to educate employees before the crisis happens. I think, Eric, you said, sometimes it's too late. You know, the do do is hit the fan, right? So having conversations with your parent when your parent is okay is extremely difficult, very uncomfortable. You're going to talk about wills and and po ways. So so I had the incredible opportunity of actually witnessing you two in action when I brought you to one of my clients during my home care days with the adult child caregiver, and I watched you guys amazingly kind of help them understand the importance of it. I mean, it was so well done. So I'm sure you have many examples and stories of where children are not successful with this. Do you have some tips on what an adult child can can can say or do with a parent to start this ball rolling, to start thinking about this stuff? Unfortunately,

Eric Goldberg:

with the parent child relationship. Sometimes there's just so much water under the bridge that the parent never really sees the child as a responsible adult, even though that that individual could be 50 years old, have a successful business and and raising children. I find that I've seen this a bunch of times where somebody says to me, my dad just will not listen to me. I, you know, I hear what you're saying, Eric, because we we've had a meeting very often, it's the adult children that meet with us first what you're saying, Eric, makes complete sense, but my dad's never going to go for this. He's stubborn. He doesn't listen to me. I we have a great relationship, except when I bring these things up, and I will tell you that I'd say I'm probably 90% at being able to convince them to do it, because I am not their child, and they look up to an attorney for better or worse. You know, people value the advice of a professional. You know, I go in there and Chloe and I have done this by design in a disarming fashion. So if I'm going to their home, or they're coming to the office, or even if they're doing it over a video conference, if you do very often, now, if you can do it in a disarming way and just explain to them the benefits of doing the planning very often they're willing to do it. It's not that heavy a lift for them. You know, we explained to them that we're going to be able to to navigate, help them navigate the entire project that they would hire us for, and they end up feeling much better after.

Zack Demopoulos:

I appreciate that Eric and clearly, obviously, Eric's not Greek or or Italian. You got to have a story for a tip on how to have those emotional conversations. But Eric, I think that's fantastic, disarming. You know, I guess you need to arm yourself first make sure you understand the process, because most people have no idea that there's two types of poas. I mean, I was completely ignorant before I started the home care business on what Medicaid was about, what poas are about. So, so that those are really good points. But clearly, do you want to share any tips for adult kids having what, be careful that emotional conversation?

Clelia Pergola:

So my it's my favorite are the Europeans. Ah, I'm the parent. You're the child. Like, that's like, classic. You gotta remind them it's not about control, right? Like they don't want to lose control, and it's not about that. It's about protecting and planning. Now means you get to decide in the future. I always say awkward now is better than chaos later. So I joke around all the time with my family. I know. So we like sarcasm, Italians. And I always, just always say, Oh, I can't wait to put you in with, you know, all the old people, and that sometimes will spur a conversation to say, like, Oh, don't put me there. Like, my father in law does not want to go there, but my mom, she's like, Oh, put me in there. She's like, I can't wait to play cards roll the men. I'm like, little do you know, it's like, one to 10 ratio of men, but she'll find that out when she gets there. Or if they're an intellectual, like, you can say something like, Dad, you know, I was reading this article about, you know, health care, power of attorneys, and I just found it really interesting. Like, do you have one that's great? So there's different ways I think you have to approach it, being mindful of the type of personality that you're dealing with. It doesn't necessarily have to be like this morbid or disrespectful sort of conversation that people think it is. Just start somewhere. Eric loves this imperfect action is better than perfect in action. Yeah? So just better to get started and just talk about it.

Unknown:

Yeah, great. Thank you both. That's great. Just just to maybe get a little bit more specific in terms of some of the challenges that you help people work through and Zach and I do a lot with working caregivers. So the caregivers that we mostly are focused on, or those that have either part or full time jobs and they're caring for a loved one at the same time. So if you think about a call that maybe you received where someone they're just starting their caregiver journey. They got the call the night before they were at work. They got the call their dad fell, or their mom had a stroke or whatever. And they call you, I'll

Eric Goldberg:

actually even even say that our expertise goes far enough to know what we don't know. And so a lot, a lot of times, families call us and they're in major crisis mode. Now I'm not talking not always financial crisis mode, but there's a health care issue. And we talk through everything. I I give them my legal opinion, and then, and then I say, Okay, I'm going to introduce you to some very important people. To introduce you to somebody who could potentially provide home care for you. I am a very big proponent of Geriatric Care Managers, otherwise known as aging life care professionals. I I'm on a roll. You know how things go in waves. Lately I've I've been recommending them almost every other meeting, because they can really help navigate these uncertainties in the long term care journey. And the uncertainty that I see very often is mom's in rehab. We don't really know how she's going to improve, right? She, let's say she had a fall. Is she ever going to walk? We don't know yet, because she's doing rehab or or dad is at home. Of thinking about, literally thinking about just cases I had this week, dad is at home. He's barely getting by in his own he has four hours of home care right now a day, and the family's worried about what, what's the next step? Do we increase the amount of home care? Does he need to go to assisted living, or does he go need to go to skilled nursing? Well, I can't tell you. I've never met the man, and I'm not a healthcare professional to begin with. So bring in these geriatric care managers to do an evaluation and give them the options and it and it takes a lot of the burden off, off the family members, also people who are involved in placement. Okay, where? You know, where, where, if someone's going to be placed, where are they going to be placed? What's the best place for them? If they're going through assisted living, they're going to end up with, you know, some assisted living communities that they need to look at. And everyone has its own flavor. Some some are better at memory care. Some are better for younger populations. Some are better for people who have some sort of mental illness. And so that's the beautiful thing about about elder care, and it's what I tell my clients and their family members all the time, is that the industry, as Zach knows so well, is a wonderful group of people, usually. And being an elder care attorney, I it gives you the the opportunity to be able to to hand off some of these cases to people and really help families really make a difference. Unlike other areas alone, where you're in a silo and and it's just all about what I can do for you, this is what we can do for you as a community.

Clelia Pergola:

Well, and I, I'll add to that is that, you know, I will, I will sing, I this is recording, right? Because you'll have to, you'll have to give Eric the snippet. I will have to sing his praises. You know, I truly believe that Eric is the best elder law attorney. I. Here in at least the tri state area. I mean, elder law is not the foundation. Our estate planning documents, right? The powers of attorney, the health care directive, the Will, Will? I tell you that he writes the best wills, no. I mean, yes, he's a great word Smith, but that's not his talent. He has a financial background. He was on Wall Street. He was a businessman. He owns his own business, numerous businesses, so he understands that there's a balance between planning, the practicality of it and also the profitability of it, and that everybody has to be profitable. So, you know, it's very hard from a family perspective, when your loved one goes into a hospital rehab and you don't know where they're going to be. Are there? Are they? Are you bringing them home with home care? Are you bringing them home and there's three children, are we all going to chip in and just do a few hours of home care? There's all these what ifs How long are they going to last at home? They're never going to go into assisted living facilities. Selma, I can't tell you, right? Zach, never that my loved one wants to die at home most of the time. Unfortunately, a high percentage, they just have that's just the way we are here, especially in the tri state area, so they don't know. And the again, why Eric's the best is because he is able to take all of those different scenarios in a one hour free consultation and be able to give you an idea of what you're dealing with and look at, is it an IRA? Is there in a taxable event? Can something be transferred into a trust, you know, all of these different opportunities and ramifications, and so he's allowed to, you know, care coordination is the bridge between knowing what needs to be done, and what actually is getting done and so And best of all, I mean, as you can see here today, is that he doesn't talk above anybody. And so you're he's really able to simplify this complicated world that you're kind of thrown into and never asked. By the way, you're never given this promotion as a caregiver and able to kind of navigate it for you so that you understand.

Unknown:

Yeah, well, just one, one last question for me, and looking back at all of the things that we've discussed, all of the different stages you talked about the Geriatric Care Manager and so forth, and all of that, of course, is not free. So there's this notion out there that long term care planning is only really something that rich people or people that have money are capable of. So can you just speak to that real quickly? Sure,

Eric Goldberg:

yeah. I'm glad you asked that, because it is definitely something a misapprehension that the public has, that only rich people do this type of planning. It's really, it's really for people who are in the middle of the road, people who, most of our clients, I think, are professional some of them are professionals who never made a huge amount of money. They built a small business, and they did well, but many of our clients are blue collar clients that shockingly saved a ton of money. These are people who never went on vacation, they never went out to dinner. They drove their cars into the ground. But they also some of them got lucky, because they bought their houses for$15,000 and now they're five or$600,000 and there's money to protect. But these are not wealthy people. And what I find, interestingly enough, is, and by the way, I do, I do a financial evaluation, so there are plenty of people I turn over away and say, You got $5 million I'm not your man like you're not ever going to qualify for Medicaid. I mean, I guess I could qualify you for me, you don't need it, just, it's just not the kind of work I do. But you know, these people have worked so hard, and what I find is, and Chloe and I have talked about this multiple times, people have worked so hard for their money. They know how to spend their money. They're going to hire professionals to make sure they protect their assets, whereas some people who are given money, or they had these high paying jobs are like, I'm not spending any money on anything, and I'm just, I'm keeping my money. So it's very interesting, we find that the people who are the salt of the earth people are our best clients, and they're also the ones who are most gracious about what we're doing. They're willing to spend money on professionals, and they're very thankful,

Zack Demopoulos:

right? Great ingredients. I mean, we, I could go on, I have so many million follow up questions, but we're running out of time. I just, I will say this, Eric, I appreciate you bringing up Geriatric Care Manager. We'll put the link for the National Association of that. But I just want to also let our listeners know that we did interview Elise Weber Sachs for our stories from working real working caregivers on December 2. Please be sure to tune into that, and she'll tell you a little bit more about what she does. She is a fantastic Geriatric Care Manager. I know you guys know her well and work with her. And then as far as the money, I'm glad you asked that question, Selma, because there is some mis there is some misperceptions out there. I I will say I have seen families when I was doing home care, and it is expensive, but they'll start with money. But two years later, after $400 a day, they're gonna run out of money. And you can't now just start Medicaid planning, you have to start way back, like, like you said, Eric, you know, 60 months of this and 60 months of that, and so I'm just so glad you brought this up, and I'm gonna throw a challenge out there. So you know how I like to do challenges to listeners. I'm gonna challenge. Yeah, I'm gonna challenge. Because this is more than a one hour session about Medicaid planning, long term care planning. You heard Eric says he gives an hour free consultation on the phone, which is very generous of you. I'm going to challenge an employer right now and a manager, an HR person listening to this to reach out to Selma and I, and we can hook you up with an elder care firm. If it's the tri state county. You already know who I'm going to send you, but, but, but we can. We can set you up with a firm so that they can speak at your organization and educate your employees and help avoid some of these issues. Okay, guys, last question, speaking of webinars, I've sat in a couple of yours. You've educated me, and I appreciate that. What just each of you maybe pick one or Eric if you want to do two, but we only have time for two. But what are like, some of the toughest questions that you get, and what are the answers to them? So our listeners have an idea of the value you bring to these webinars,

Eric Goldberg:

the biggest challenge that our our families face, and the challenging one to answer is, what if I gave away money and then need to apply for Medicaid. That's the scariest thing for people, because there is this five year look back and they're looking at gifts. The gifts are presumed to be a gift to qualify one for Medicaid earlier, and there's a penalty not going to get into the whole penalty thing. How can I resolve that? You got to resolve it early enough. You have to still have money, and I can resolve it for you. We have a strategy. We have a couple of strategies available that can resolve that problem. It's a major, major problem, because what it does is they still allow you to qualify for Medicaid, but they won't cover you for a period of time, which, if you're at a really high cost of care is is an impossibility. You'll end up having to come home with a family carry for you if you have no money.

Zack Demopoulos:

That's a great example. What do they say? All good deeds never go unpunished. I mean, that's and

Eric Goldberg:

that's and that's what it is. I just one last thing about my blue collar versus professional client base, I find that the salt of the earth people, the ones who have the least money, give the most money away to their family members. Wow. And it ends up they end up kicking themselves for that, because it ruins everything for them. And we can usually resolve that problem and give it enough resources.

Clelia Pergola:

I mean, for me, it's really, I find the biggest problem when someone starts talking to me is I'm either talking to the caregiver or I'm talking to and that is someone that lives in the home, hands on, care, bathing, dressing, mom or dad or I'm talking to the one that's not caring for hands on, but has control of the assets and the money. And there is this they may get along, which is a blessing, but there is always a little bit of a friction between the two, and so it's getting everybody on the same page. I think that it's is always the hardest, and they they don't want to disrespect their sibling in one way or another, and who gets what? And Mom told me, and I been bathing dad, and it's those sort of conversations. And so the biggest contention is the house. You know, here in New Jersey, our houses are expensive, and they're usually our largest asset. Zach, you know. So, you know, protecting the house is always first and foremost in our minds and in the family's minds. And so one thing I would say is, you said before about being expensive. It's Eric loves this is you think it's expensive to hire a professional, wait until you hire an amateur. So you're gonna do it yourself. You're it's gonna. See where the ends. Unfortunately,

Unknown:

you guys, yeah, fantastic one liners, wow. Yeah, that's a great one. Any last comments, we're going to close up anything. No, just that. The last comment, Celia that you made regarding the family dynamics, that's like a major, a major issue, that everybody that gets into caregiving is going to run into that. So at some point, we would love to come back and talk a little bit more about that, because I don't know a caregiver that has an experience the family dynamics of caring.

Clelia Pergola:

It's and it's so important, right? That's at the end of the day, that's the legacy. Those are the important things I understand. We plan for people's assets, but the kindness that your mom and dad taught you, or the responsibility, the value of responsibility, those are the values and the legacy that are left behind. So when you're fighting with your sibling and you never did before. That's Yes. The really sad part, it's not losing the hundreds of 1000s of dollars that you were going to lose taking care of mom and dad anyway. Yeah,

Zack Demopoulos:

guys, we are out of time. But like I said, we Selma said we could probably come bring you guys back. You guys have such tremendous experience, lived experience, as well as professional experience, and we can't thank you enough. Clearly. And Eric, how about maybe one last call to action for our listeners. If you want to throw something out there, I think I know what it's going to be, but go ahead.

Clelia Pergola:

So for me, it's go on our website, NJ, elc.com, sign up for our email blast and we give a Motivational Monday to start off your Monday on a good note. So I would love for you to get that

Eric Goldberg:

Yeah, and I would just recommend always make sure that you that that you're planning for the inevitable, right hope for the best. Plan for the worst. There's no harm in in speaking to law firms like ourselves. Nobody wants to speak to a to a lawyer, you know, when they're going through long term care crisis, but, you know, we offer a free consultation for a reason. We want to talk to people. We want to, you know, let people know that that there's help out I didn't know there was help out there when, when my family was going through this 20 years ago. I'll never forget that same

Zack Demopoulos:

here, Eric and I mentioned, if it wasn't for you guys, I barely got enough advanced planning in place for my father before he passed away six months later. And think thankfully, I had a chance to meet you guys and learn more about what you do, and I was able to take it to my parents and had that difficult conversation, but we were able to do it. So thank you so much, Eric, for your time. Thank you guys. Thank you.

Unknown:

Thank you for tuning in. Be sure to catch new episodes of working caregivers, the invisible employees podcast every other Tuesday, please also visit our website, invisible employee advocates.com to subscribe to our newsletter, purchase our book and learn more about how we can help you strengthen your workplace to become more supportive of working caregivers you.