I’m Moving Into An Assisted Living Facility: Change In Residence Checklist

Eldercare living arrangements are like planning a vacation. If you make them early, it’s often smooth sailing. If you wait until the last minute, things usually don’t turn out too well.

Decisions About Living Situation

What place will best suit your situation? If you’re staying in your home, or moving into someone else’s, you might need to make modifications. If you plan on moving into a retirement community, assisted living facility, or nursing home, you need to visit the place to get a sense of the staff, other residents and quality of care before committing.

Related Checklists:

• Questions To Consider When Choosing A Nursing Home
• Questions To Consider When Choosing An Assisted Living Facility (ALF)
• Questions To Consider When Choosing In-Home Care

Important Medical Decisions Need To Be Made

Rather than pull out some horrifying statistic regarding medical treatments most us will have to endure as we get older, let’s keep this simple: Make your medical decisions while you still can. You need to complete an Advance Directive (find your state’s form here), which includes naming a Health Care Proxy, creating a Living Will, and decided about Organ Donation and other medical odds and ends so you family isn’t forced to make these tough decisions. [Dig Deeper: All You Need To Know About Advance Directives]

Make A Will

Regardless of your current living situation, it’s always smart to have an updated Will at the ready. It doesn’t have to be complicated. You spent your life earning all your assets and property, it’s up to you to make sure they get to the right people or organizations. You also want to prevent your heirs from fighting after you’re gone. No one thinks it’ll happen to their family… until it happens to their family. [Dig Deeper: All You Need To Know About Creating A Will]

Name A POA

Alleviate any concerns regarding your finances during this transition by naming a Power of Attorney. If something happens to you this person will be able to pay bills, manage bank accounts, oversee investments, sign contracts, and file your taxes. [Dig Deeper: All You Need To Know About Naming A POA]

Get All Those Papers Under Control

Apart from legal and medical forms (Will, Life Insurance policy, POA, Advance Directive…) it’s important to get a handle on all the other paperwork in your life to make things easier in the long run (utilities, banking info, digital accounts and passwords, etc...). Whether you’re changing your residence, or altering your current place, this is the ideal time to do it. [Dig Deeper: All You Need To Know About Organizing Important Documents]

Pre-plan Funeral… Or At Least Talk About Funeral Wishes

You don’t have to plan your own funeral out perfectly, but you should give your family or loved ones some direction. Start by letting them know if you want to be buried, cremated, or donated. From there you can get specific if you want, especially if you’ve already made some arrangements (example: you have a family plot). [Dig Deeper: Pre-Planning a Funeral]

Related reading: All You Need To Know About Eldercare, Eldercare Cheat Sheet: Five Tips To Get You Started