We had an excellent long term care insurance policy. It would have paid for Alan’s care in a dementia facility for four years. The main reason we had purchased a long term care policy, nine years before Alan died, was in case one of us was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. At that point, our awareness was different, and we had never heard of VSED.
When I felt we needed support from caregivers because I couldn’t leave Alan alone in the house, and he was losing his ability to do many things, I called our long term care insurance company. It was a challenging process to get them to open and activate the policy. One thing I overlooked was the ninety day elimination period that acted as our deductible. We were required to hire someone ourselves for at least one time per week for ninety days before our policy could go into effect. Dealing with the long term care insurance company required a lot of perseverance.
Although VSED is a legal process, I’m glad we had every “i” dotted and every “t” crossed. It gave us the security of extra protection.
As the date got closer to Alan starting the VSED process, our elder care attorney came over to our house with more papers to sign. The last forms were called “Release & Assumption of Risk.” It took risk away from the doctor, me and the caregivers while taking care of Alan. All of our legal forms were witnessed and notarized.
On the beginning of the third day of Alan’s VSED process, we got a phone call from Adult Protective Services. Someone, who had disagreed with Alan’s decision, called Adult Protective Services about the possibility of abuse. The social worker said she would be at our house in ten minutes to investigate.
The social worker who arrived from Adult Protective Services was surprised to walk into a peaceful, beautiful house with a sacred altar in our living room that contained twenty-four hour candles, flowers and memorabilia from Alan’s life. After a few minutes, the social worker and I went into Alan’s bedroom, and she asked Alan questions about his choice to VSED. He answered them with clarity. I left them alone for a few minutes and went upstairs and called my lawyer and gathered our legal papers together. Then I went downstairs and the social worker and I went into our dining area. I reviewed each legal document separately and explained them to her. She looked at everything carefully, listened attentively and took many notes. One week later she wrote a positive report about her investigation. The case was closed.
Although VSED is a legal process, I’m glad we had every “i” dotted and every “t” crossed. It gave us the security of extra protection.