Working adults spend decades saving for their retirement years. When someone hopes to age in place, they need adequate resources to maintain their home, pay taxes and cover cost-of-living expenses. Those who move into nursing homes will likely have costs that are many times higher than the expenses of individuals living in their own homes after retirement.
If an older adult shows signs of cognitive decline or demonstrates an inability to manage their finances, the nursing home where they live might ask the Colorado courts for conservatorship. Why do businesses seek control over someone’s finances?
The priority is securing full payment
The uncomfortable truth about a business requesting conservatorship is that the motive is almost certainly financial. There are likely concerns that an older adult may fail to make payments or could lose assets due to mismanagement of their resources. Those financial challenges could then leave the nursing home at a disadvantage when it seeks payment in full for services rendered. Nursing homes seek conservatorships as a way to obtain payment in full for the services already rendered to nursing home residents and to ensure payment for future services as well.
Families sometimes need to recognize when a loved one might be vulnerable to such efforts and take action before a facility does. That way, the person controlling an individual’s assets will prioritize the individual’s best interests, not the profits of the care facility. Even when an older adult resents the idea of giving up control over their finances to others, they will likely recognize that it is better to have someone they know and trust managing their affairs than a stranger with professional ties to the nursing home where they live.
Ultimately, eliminating the profit incentive in a conservatorship scenario may lead to a better outcome for an older adult who is in need of outside support.