Are there people who consult and help with all the things one needs to do for and with elderly relatives and friends? I don’t mean government agencies, but someone who could say, “You will need several copies of the death certificate, which can be provided by the funeral home. Here is a list of funeral services. If your parent isn’t quite dead yet, you will need to consider X,Y, and Z, and we can recommend A,B, and C for this work. We don’t give legal or medical advice, but can talk about counselling and death doulas (this is, I just learned, a thing) and put you in touch with people. Need to move belongings or clear out a place? We can do that. The 5 worst government bureaucracies you’ll need to navigate and we can help.”
That sort of thing. One stop shopping so you don’t have to learn and do it all at the worst time or waste time trying to google “the 247 things you need to know when a parent needs to move to care, or dies.”
Does such a service exist where you are or that you know of?
It sounds like you really want a lawyer in the elderly person’s state (and preferably city) who specializes in elder care. That’s the service, as far as I’m aware.
I’m thinking more in the abstract right now–the last parent died a year ago, and my partner and my brother and SIL (one of the good ones!) often reflected, boy, it would be useful if there was someone who we could meet with who could advise not just on the legal stuff, but all the time-consuming things, from finding out geriatric psychiatrists exist, to physiotherapists to moving to the details like “get a lot of death certificates, etc.” Most people I imagine go through this once, twice, depending on their family/relationship with the elderly person, and it’s stuff you swot up and may never need again. A kit, with people who know the ropes, would be super-helpful.
I’m taking care of my MIL while my wife works, and although I haven’t needed or looked for such services myself (yet), I’m reasonably sure most community senior centers would be able to offer or refer you to such services. The one my MIL goes to for lunch most days does.
Your local government’s social services agencies should also be able to help.
Even if you are not a client or resident, a nursing home or retirement community in your area might have someone who could at least point you in the right direction, if not actually provide the services themselves.
My Dad passed away in 2016, about two years after my parents had moved into an independent-living apartment in a retirement center. The social worker at the the center was somewhat helpful, but the person that assisted the most was the funeral director. Of course, it helped that both Mom and Dad had pre-planned their services, and the funeral home was located in the small town near where we lived when I was a child.
The funeral director contacted me before Dad died and we went over the list of things that needed to be done right after Dad’s passing. That was extremely helpful, as I didn’t have to worry about that stuff when we were grieving his death. And when Mom died last year, the same was true–the funeral director was the best source of information and assistance.
Mom was also in Hospice for the last six months of her life. Those folks were extremely helpful on medical matters and counseling.
But legal assistance? You’ll need to engage a lawyer, I’m afraid.
If the parent has planned really well (rare as that might be), it can take a lot of the burden off of dealing with their death. After my mother died, my father started saying every so often “you know, I’m going to die too one of these days, and so you’ll need this and that and another thing.” I guess I stored it up.
Also I think I must have been reading stuff somewhere, because I knew to get lots of copies of the death certificate, I knew I had to notify Social Security and his pension right away to stop the payments, so they wouldn’t be clawing back any money, and some other stuff. I was already on his bank accounts, although for some reason he hadn’t put me on his safe deposit box, where the will and trust documents were. That turned out to be a fairly minor glitch, it was at the same bank. He also had almost everything he owned in a living trust, so that in our state the will was a “small estate” and didn’t have to go through probate, and I could take over the trust assets immediately. With my sister’s help, and a neighbor/friend who helped with a garage sale, it took about 10 days of work to clear out his apartment and get everything into shape so I could go back home and administer the trust from there. I was very grateful he was so well organized, and I am trying to follow suit.
I apologize for not being clearer. I’m wondering if anyone has encountered a professional who takes on some of the tasks, information gathering, etc. It seems like a service many could use, especially if the elderly person lives in another location. Not a caretaker, but someone who could be something of an intermediary to help arrange that and other services and access to experts. We got through it all, relatively easily, but it would have been helpful to be able to work with someone who knew the ins and outs and could offer some advice. Is that a service anyone here has availed themselves of or heard of someone supplying?
I work for a county-level Area Agency on Aging. I’m part of the group that manages people on Medicare and Medicaid who are in a program to care for them in their own home. Others in my office are part of a Senior Information and Assistance group. They would be the type of people to call. They routinely guide people to the right kinds of resources depending on the individual situation and level of care the person needs.
The funeral home in my experience will do a lot, from ordering death certificates to notifying SS and pensions of the death. A senior living community or a senior citizen center might be able to provide info for a reputable “clean-out” service, or a geriatric psychiatrist or someone who practices elder law.
If by “taking on some of the tasks” you mean cleaning out the house, you will find companies that will do that. You will find places (like senior citizen centers or social workers at the nursing home that the person moves to ) that will give you contact info for those companies and tell you at least some of what needs to be done , but you are unlikely to find a service that specializes in actually doing all the things that need to be done when a relative/friend gets old or passes away , like hiring that clean-out service or turning off the electricity or closing bank accounts. . Especially since what needs to be done will vary so much from case to case - when my father died, really all we had to do was arrange the funeral service and burial and notify SS and his pension (which the funeral home took care of) . My mother was still living in the house, and her name was on all the bank accounts. When my mother-in-law died, in addition to what the funeral home handled, we had to clean out the apartment, turn off the utilities , let her landlord know , and my husband had to file with the court to be appointed the executor because she didn’t have a will. Fortunately, he was an only child and didn’t need a lawyer - I know someone in a similar situation who has a year after the death still not been appointed the executor because there was some disagreement between siblings and one took months to agree to the appointment. Because of that, they needed to hire a lawyer and they have been paying maintenance and utilities on the co-op for the past year, because it can’t be sold until someone is appointed. If I die before my husband, he won’t have to sell the house - but he will have to notify my pension to switch the benefits to him and arrange with my former employer to change the health insurance to individual coverage.
It’s hard to see how any one service could even know for sure what needs to be done in every case ( I’d bet not even 1% of people have retiree health coverage that will cover the spouse after the retired employee dies) and that’s going to keep anyone from offering “full-service”. No one is going to sue the author of “247 things you need to know” because they missed # 248 -259 - but they might sue someone who offered a service that “takes care of everything” if they actually didn’t.
Many times, while moving older folks into assisted living, there was often someone with the title “Senior Advocate” who’s services were contracted by the facility but not paid for by the facility? Some part of social services I think but not 100% sure of. Anyway that was their entire job, help arrange moving, storage, the disposition of the home if needed etc. Anything that came up in the course of getting someone moved into an assisted living home. I didn’t run into these people all the time, but enough times to know that it is a service that is available to some extent