saw an article today that the temporary Medicare rules allowing coverage for tele-heatth visits expired on 9/30.
Bummer.
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I have been known to play pickleball outside when itās 25ā¦ What does that say about me :)?
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@1214mom it says you would totally fit in where I live!
Yes, but my H uses doctors in one particular hospital system. He has traditional Medicare + supplement, but the hospital group has some special Medicare designation & they can continue to use telemedicine. My doctors donāt have that ability. So some people with Medicare may still be able to use telemedicine, depending on their particular circumstances.
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Medicare newbie here - if Medicare doesnāt cover the telehealth will you Medicare supplement cover it?
No. The supplement only covers the 20% of Medicare-covered costs that remain after Medicare pays 80% (after the annual deductible).
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good to hear.
Iād rather pay a huge tax bill once than never see my money again in DST investments. Itās easy to get into DST but hard to get your money out.
For me, Iāve been selling my RE investments, one a year. My kids donāt have the time nor interest to manage RE. Yes, we have huge tax bills, but the proceeds have been re-invested in the stock market which has risen more than real estate without the management headaches.
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I apologize for the political messaging at the top of this link, but itās directly from the Medicare website. Hās hospital system is a Medicare Accountable Care Organization. I am somewhat familiar with ACOās because D set one up in Texas years back, but it was for Medicaid. I donāt know exactly what the deal is with Medicare ACOās ā¦ H doesnāt have any restrictions or rules like needing prior authorization or using only certain doctors/hospitals. He has not chosen to go outside of the hospital system, but he absolutely can if he wants. The link contains a map showing U.S. Medicare ACOās.
According to the information on ACOās, they get certain perks as a result of participation:
Benefit enhancements were waivers of certain Medicare service rules (e.g., telehealth, post-discharge home visits, and the three-day skilled nursing facility rule), and initiatives intended to assist Next Generation Accountable Care Organizations in improving care for and engagement of their beneficiaries.
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I thought this was interesting as it pertains to real estate investments that were a topic of conversation above. Of course, all real estate is local.
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We downsized to an apartment. Happy to not own a home anymore - no maintenance, no real estate taxes, no condo fees., etc. And our money is doing very nicely in an investment account instead (growing at a much better rate than any real estate investment).
I think renting as you age instead of buying smaller houses, is a strategy that is often overlooked.
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I wonder about selling the house. Investing for income and using that for rent.
Houses have headaches. Apartments do too but in their others handle themā¦.when they doā¦they donāt always.
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Uh?
We have a number of friends who have elected to sell and rent. The biggest issue they have all faced is increased rent costsā¦and sometimes large increased rent costs. One persons rent has doubled since 2021.
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I have retired friends who rent with same complaints about rent increases. One bought another house (ranch this time), to have more consistent expenses. I remember thinking that house costs go up too, especially taxes and insurance.
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And house costs increase too. My property taxes go up every year. Dās taxes and insurance soared this year. I just had fall maintenance done on my sprinkler system, dryer vent cleaned, heating system maintenance ( and a small repair made) and replaced 2 water heaters!
I am seriously considering selling my house and renting. The sale proceeds ( itās paid off) will be put into an account and just the interest on the account will go a good way towards covering the rent.
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Yes, rents increase, and can increase quite a bit. But our house costs were also increasing a lot (property taxes in particular), as were the maintenance costs (more to do and paying more to get these things done).
The other thing with an apartment is that you have more flexibility. Letās say you decide you donāt like where you are anymore. It is easier to move to a new apartment, then to have to sell and buy a house.
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Meaning if you need stuff fixed, you hope they are responsive. Thatās a big maybe. My sonās company is great. My daughters - slow walks.
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Iām currently looking into apartments in my neighborhood and one of the things I check is reviews and comments concerning maintenance issues.
With my house I have had to hire a handyman and will need to hire out for lawn work in the spring. Thatās all stuff my late H used to take care of but I donāt have the skills or interest in doing. The handyman is good but he is expensive and busy. Iāll be getting a different lawn person than the one I hired this spring and they will likely be more expensive.
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We need much less space than we have but would need a studio for ShawWife (hers is about 900sf in a separate building). Hard to find in a rental.
But, it would be very hard to replicated the calmness of where we live (on the bank of a river, surrounded by conservation land and a horse farm). The good news: it is incredibly beautiful and calm. The bad news: our neighbors are animals. We knew this was the season when mice try to move in with us and had the pest company come and put baited traps out last week, but one mouse seems to have died in one of our walls. Last night, as I was closing off a Zoom call from our dining room (basically a room with four glass walls, I watched a very large rodent-like animal waddle by. Probably a woodchuck but the tail looked a bit too thin. You can often hear the coyotes if you open the door. Muskrats, beavers, and I think river otters on the river. Bald eagles, cooper hawks, geese, ducks, blue herons, many other kinds of birds. Deer, foxes, fishers, have not seen a bear. Fortunately, thus far only the mice try to cohabitate with us.
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On another note, one of my FAs provides software that they/we have populated that lists all of our investments with both FAs as well as other assets like real estate and liabilities (we still have a 2.625% mortgage on our house that I am not eager to pay off sooner than I have to). The software then calculates our net worth. But, it is misleading as it does no discounting for the ordinary income tax that would have to be paid on our retirement accounts as they are all in pre-tax income. I know it is hard, but interms of the question that started this thread many moons ago, āHow much do you think you need to retire?ā, I need to think about my net worth after I pay taxes and not before. When I make the adjustment, I feel OK and I recognize that they canāt know my tax situation. But, the number they give me is larger than it should be if we were thinking in an after-tax world.
I also donāt assume that our house is part of the number as we need to live in it ā or would need to sell it (and pay cap gains tax) and then buy something else or pay rent.
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