NATIONAL RESOURCES

What follows are online resources that may be of use to the elderly and their adult children or other caregivers.

• Medicare.gov. An all-purpose site with interactive tools for planning and paying for long-term care and choosing among drug plans. Includes searchable inspection results, good and bad, for the all the nation’s skilled nursing facilities.

• NIHSeniorHealth.gov. A collaboration of the National Institutes of Health and the National Library of Medicine that provides authoritative information on all diseases and disorders of old age. Each section is available in both large-type and audio versions.

• National Institute on Aging. Describes ongoing research on aging and lists clinical trials seeking participants.

Housing and Services

• National Center for Assisted Living. Provides a more elaborate “facility finder” that factors in cost, method of payment, mobility, dietary needs, activities and amenities.

• National Association of Professional Geriatric Care Managers. Search for a geriatric care manager by location.

• Homemods.org. Advice on home renovation from the University of Southern California.

• HealthGrades. Comparisons and one-to-five-star ranking of nursing homes, for $9.95 for the first report and $2.95 for each additional one.

• UCompareHealthCare. Free search by location for nursing homes, plus data on quality, staffing and outcomes from government sources. (Disclosure: Owned by The New York Times Co.)

• TheSeniorGuide.com. Search by state and region for all types of senior housing, case managers, lawyers and more. Includes a glossary of industry jargon.

• National Association of Senior Move Managers (NASMM). A not-for-profit, professional association dedicated to assisting older adults with the physical and emotional demands of downsizing, relocating, or modifying their homes.

• A Place for Mom

Caregiving

• National Alliance for Caregiving. Reviews of more than 1,000 books, videos, Web sites and links.

• National Family Caregivers Association. Provides statistics, research and policy reports, tip sheets, first-person accounts, a newsletter and an exhaustive resource list.

• MetLife Mature Market Institute. Reports from a research arm of the insurance company on the price of assisted living, the strains of long-distance caregiving, and the cost to employers of baby boomer employees involved in eldercare.

• The Alzheimer’s Association.

Legal and Financial

• BenefitsCheckUp. A search tool developed by the National Council on Aging to determine eligibility for 1,300 benefit programs that help pay for medications, health care, utilities and so forth.

• National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys. Search by location for members of the association. Provides questions to ask lawyers about qualifications and areas of expertise, and a wide-ranging resource list for the elderly.

• National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Free fact sheets and shoppers’ guides for long-term care insurance, annuities and Medigap policies.

• Insurance Information Institute.

• Reverse.org. A consumer’s guide to reverse mortgages from a non-profit with no ties to the industry. Links to the AARP’s calculator for choosing such policies.

• ReverseMortgage.org. Similar calculator and search tool to find local lenders, with links to their Web sites.

• Nolo. Do-it-yourself legal advice. Wills, powers of attorney and other documents.

• Senior Law Home Page. Advice from a New York law firm on the legal and financial issues facing the elderly. state forms for powers of attorney, health care proxies and living wills.

• U.S. Living Will Registry. Free state-by-state forms.

End of Life

• The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization. An excellent search tool for finding a hospice, as well as guides on issues related to palliative care, including Medicare coverage and techniques for communicating end-of-life wishes.

• Caring Connections. Contains of the consumer information from NHPCO and has state-by-state advance directive forms.

• Compassion and Choices.

• Hospice Foundation of America. Information on end-of-life issues, such as pain management. One section called “Caregivers Corner” has links, reading lists and a self-assessment tool for caregivers to analyze their own strengths and weaknesses.

• Elderweb. An eccentric site that includes the history of long-term care policy in America, census maps that show the concentration of people 60 and over, book reviews, updates on state laws affecting the elderly, and a dictionary of eldercare jargon.

• Caring.com. An all-in-one site with advice on caregiving, long-term care, talking with elders and insurance issues.

• National Care Planning Council. A work in progress from a couple who “didn’t have a life for five years” while caring for four elderly parents. Now a membership organization advocating for long-term care.

• Third Age. Articles, expert interviews, quizzes and discussion boards for caregivers.

Advocacy

• AARP. Political position papers, member discounts, demographic research, online versions of its bulletin, and magazine and consumer advice.

• Center for Medicare Advocacy. Detailed information about what Medicare covers, and how to enroll and, if necessary, appeal denial of claims.

• Medicare Rights Center.   A similar tutorial on how this government health care program for the elderly works.  A link to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s “Medicare 101” and a hotline for questions and complaints.