Navigating Medicaid, Care Planning, and Senior Living Options with Jaretta Love

In this episode of Serving Boomer Nation, I sat down with Jaretta Love, owner of Saving Grace Advocates, to demystify one of the most confusing parts of aging: how to afford care.

With more than a decade of experience as an administrator and senior advocate, Jaretta breaks down the Medicaid approval process...both the physical and financial sides...and explains how families can prepare before a crisis hits. Together, we talked about:

• 🏠 The real differences between assisted living, residential care homes, adult day care, and skilled nursing
• 💰 Medicaid myths and how families can qualify ethically and compliantly
• 🧭 How early planning can prevent “crisis placements”
• 👥 The vital role of caregivers, senior advisors, and placement agencies
• ❤️ What it really takes to run and sustain an assisted living community with integrity

This conversation is part education, part inspiration and a powerful reminder that with the right information, families can make confident, compassionate decisions for their loved ones.

📩 Connect with Jaretta Love:
Email: info@mysavinggraceadvocates.com

Website: https://www.mysavinggraceadvocate.com/

🎧 Listen now — and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode.
Let’s make aging work better for all of us.

Take what you need. Share what helps. Come back for more.

Transcript

Tiffany Updated voice 0:05

Welcome to Serving Boomer Nation, a podcast for aging adults and those who serve them. Hi, I'm Tiffany, your host, and I'm a former senior living executive, now a marketing strategist and aging care advocate. I created this podcast because the conversation around aging just deserves to be better. Let's be honest, navigating healthcare, caregiving, housing, and planning for longevity is not easy. The systems are confusing. The support is scattered. And, too many families are left trying to figure it out on their own. Serving Boomer Nation exists to change all of that. Each week, I'll bring you real talk with professionals and caregivers, other aging adults. And innovators across the spectrum, healthcare, finance, wellness, and senior living. We'll break down complex topics, share powerful stories, and offer practical tools to help you make informed, confident decisions, whether you're a boomer navigating your next chapter or someone supporting them along the way. If you're ready to cut through all this noise, rethink what aging looks like and be a part of a community committed to dignity, clarity, and connection. This podcast, my friend, is for you. Subscribe now and come along for the journey because aging isn't a decline. It's a redesign.

Tiffany 1:31

/Thank you, jaretta for joining us here on the podcast. I am so excited to have you as a guest and to really expose what you're doing for aging adults, and their families, but also for residential assisted living and senior living communities, and senior advisors, because those are all your different niches, right? Yes, yes,

Jaretta 1:54

So, Tiffany, thank you for having me. my name is Jaretta. Last name is Love and I am the owner of saving grace advocates. I started saving grace about 10 years when I was introduced to the senior living industry as a sales director, being in that position. And working for an income restricted community, kind of open eyes to the needs from a financial standpoint for our seniors and, the financial planning aspect, because assisted living communities and, senior living planning is, it can be sticker shock so along my journey, I was introduced to Medicaid, which is a resource that helps pay for assistant living, adult daycare, skilled nursing facilities, for those that are income restricted. what I do under the saving grace umbrella, is I help individuals apply for these resources. I work with families to get them physically approved and financially approved. oftentimes if the individuals over income or over assets, depending on how much. overage, they may need an elder law attorney, which I work closely with as well. my goal is to bring more awareness, because people don't realize that these resources exist and they may not pay for, all of the care that, your loved one may need, but at least it'll support in some capacity. Most oftentimes in the state of Florida, Medicaid will pay anywhere from 1400 to 1600 a month towards assisted living facility. you and I being experts in the field, we know that on average average assisted living facility ranges from $3,500 to $4,000 of course, depending on the type. what's saving grace is I work with families through the whole process. You and I know, we've had the experience of being caregivers for our loved ones and we know the challenges that it can bring. And again, the resources here for them, whether it's in home care, adult daycare, assisted living, we do ideally want to keep our loved ones at home. with us. oftentimes that's just not, an option for several reasons. we can't provide, the care that our loved ones need, or, you know, I mean, we work full time. They could, you know, have diagnosis of Alzheimer's or, you know, they just can't, they need a memory care facility where it's safe for them. So, along with me, helping individuals apply for the resource to help pay for, either type, whether it's a facility or skilled nursing or adult daycare, I can help the loved ones find. Places for their loved ones based on their needs as well. not all facilities except Medicaid. and those that do only accept certain plans. So, as I work with my clients and their loved ones, we identify their needs physically, mentally, emotionally, and we identify what, you know, what resources or what communities will accept Medicaid.

Tiffany 4:55

So one of the things that you talked about is being physically qualified. So I don't think a lot of people realize that there are certain limitations and certain things that has to happen for them to get approved for Medicaid physically. Can you go a little bit into that?

Jaretta 5:14

Sure, sure. So the Medicaid. Questionnaire or the assessment consists of about 50 questions related to the individual's ability to perform their, whether it's bathing, dressing, grooming, toileting, along with medication management, meal preparation, Those questions I, and I prepare my families for these questions. You will have these questions before your interview with the state. Basically, your assessment with the state. Okay, those questions are I give those to you for as a preparation technique. So you have time to think about, you know, how your loved 1 responds on their worst day. Basically.

Tiffany 5:58

a lot of times family likes to present the good part, right? but when you said on their worst day, that's really what they should be preparing for because every day is not going to be a good day. And if they assess based off of all their good days, then they're really almost cheating themselves because they're not giving the full picture.

Jaretta 6:17

That's right. And then so the state provides a ranking, here in the Tampa Bay area is, is a five, which is five is the highest. after the assessment call, the assessor will provide the loved one or the individual with that ranking. and obviously our goal is to, for it to be a five, so that we're further along in the process, that just means they'll be approved, physically sooner than later. it also, the assessment also touches on the well being or the mental state of the caregiver, as well. I did not know that. yes, yes, it does. Wow, okay. so us, you know, as caregivers or family have the opportunity to, you know, to kind of provide feedback on where we stand mentally and, you know, physically ourselves. You know, as we try to, be a caregiver to our loved ones, yeah,

Tiffany 7:09

that's so important because so many times, right? The caregivers, especially in a spousal situation, right? And you have two aging adults, one is caregiving, especially here in Florida, right? One is caregiving for the other. And so by doing that, they're looking at that spouse and saying, Hey, you know, they might even need more help themselves. And so this is more of an elevated need than, you know, someone else who, doesn't have those same type of, because everybody's situation is so different.

Jaretta 7:43

the process itself is about 3 months. that's why 1 of my goals is to bring awareness, sooner than later so that we can avoid. Those crisis placements, how often do we have loved ones that might fall, break a hip, might not bounce back and be able to be at home and need to go into, you know, assisted living facility, you know, and not have the resources to pay for it. we can apply for this resource, even though your loved one might not need it right now, if we apply for it, if you're eligible for it and you don't need it, then that's fine. That's fine too, at least, you have that resource available to you, and your loved ones,

Tiffany 8:20

Good. Okay. The other thing you talked about is financially. So a lot of, there's a lot of misconceptions, don't get me on my soapbox, a lot of misconceptions about, Yeah. financially approving. And it seems like, you know, I'm not trying to be funny and I'm not trying to out any one region of Florida, but the further South you go, the more creative people get to, you know, since I'm in North Florida to, to qualify their loved ones quickly, with assets and things like that. Can you touch a little bit about What the qualifications are, and how, you know, and how families are dealing with that because sometimes people are just a hair over being qualified. So can you just walk us through what a little bit of that look like or may look like?

Jaretta 9:16

Sure. So the income cap for the Medicaid long term care waiver. Program, also known as the Home and community based program is $2,742 for a single individual.

Tiffany 9:31

That is, wow. It's grown up since I started working on it because it was $2,022 when I first started in the industry.

Jaretta 9:37

Yes. So it's increased, you know, over the years. But in the asset cap is $2,000. Okay. Now, asset caps is meaning anything other than the home and the vehicle. That you live in and that you drive so bank account balances, life insurance policies that have a cash value, they would have to be cashed out and used, compliantly, ethically towards, home care. But anything over that, I always tell my families, if you're working with $10,000 or what not, that's pretty easy to spend down on healthcare, especially if you're going into assisted living facility, you know, one or two months is going to, um, you know, exhaust that $10,000. But anything over that, I strongly encourage elder law attorney, as they have options as far as care contracts or trust, I can still work with the families to get individual physically approved, and then the elder law attorney would work with them to get them financially approved.

Tiffany 10:41

So the direction is how to do this because a lot of times, you know, some people may think, well, is she taking the place of an elder law attorney? And, you know, we always get that, who does she think she is? right? But at the end of the day. When you go to an elder law attorney, they may have a consultation for maybe the first 30 minutes, but then after that you start paying, where with you for a much lower cost, probably for one hour of their services, they can actually get you to start the ball rolling. Really have a little bit more of a hand holding situation and then see if they even need that. And if they do, then it sounds like you work with elder law attorneys to walk them through this process. Am I getting a clear picture? because it's so overwhelming,

Jaretta 11:29

So that's why I have such a great partnership with our elder law attorneys because I was pretty much trying to capture the income restricted seniors and individuals. And still be able to provide them guidance along the way. So, with me, I offer complimentary consultations and my fee is really based on your income, basically. That's the difference between myself and anyone else. or any of my competitors, I would say is my fees are based on your income. solely your income. if you are, over income and assets, then I can work on you getting physically approved, which would save you a couple thousand dollars when dealing with the elder law attorneys and the elder law attorney would work on your financial approval process. Gotcha. And then, of course, when you're working with me, you've gained a friend or another family member for a lifetime, because I'm not going anywhere. I'm here for you throughout the whole, process We have to get you recertified every year. You have to renew your eligibility every year. I don't think a lot of people know that. Yeah, you have to redo every year as well. Oftentimes, once an individual is approved for long term care Medicaid, the Medicaid plan, Has it was associated with a case manager that case manager typically ensures that your eligibility is renewed every year. But if not, then I catch it on my end because we want to make sure you maintain your eligibility. And then this resource is available. For a lifetime, you know, so when it comes to, the trust and the care contracts, it might cost a couple thousand dollars, but you're entitled, you know, you're eligible for that $1,400 to $1,600 a month for a lifetime.

Tiffany 13:16

Mm. So, yeah, there's so. a cost going in, but it's going to give you a long term. Obviously, it's considered long term care, right? So it's going to give that to you for the long term and with more and more people living a lot longer, you know, we're finding that, they are living a lot longer. when I first started in the industry, it was such a big deal when people turned a hundred, like it was like celebration and balloons. And now I see so many turning a hundred, a hundred and three, a hundred and four. You see it just more often than ever. It seems like. So that financial planning is such an important piece. What I have found, too, is you talked about resources that are there. I don't think a lot of people realize that there are, that what separates the difference between the resources for assisted living from the Nursing home from adult daycare, and I don't even know if people know that there's resources for adult daycare. So can you go a little bit into that

Jaretta 14:21

Sure. So the same process for Medicaid is the same for assisted living and the same for adult daycare. The difference is that once you're approved for Medicaid, and you choose your Medicaid plan. you decide if you want adult daycare, which is when you go to a community, you may have activities meal prep and you go for a certain period of time opposed to overnight stay. for those, not familiar, with adult daycare, it's a, it's a daily, it's the daycare basically for adults, but those typically pay anywhere from 15 to 20 an hour, depending on the plan. I would say adult daycare is a great segway into assisted living as well And we're not, you know, we were trying to keep it home, but we also know, we need to plan because they may not be able to be at home and that's be a caregiver, you know, long term.

Tiffany 15:17

The other good part about adult daycare is that it's the engagement and the social interaction, you know, so many times I think, you know, we forget as caregivers are aging adults, you know, they want people who they can relate to. That's right. Of course, family is important and they love family and stuff like that. But, I remember one resident told me like they wanted someone who, she was like, I want to talk to people who have. issues like me, you know, who had the past that I do, that I can relate to. And I thought that was such an interesting perspective because I think as caregivers, we forget about that. We're like, well, we're caring for mom and, and it's the family and everything is good, but you know, they want someone who they can relate to too. So. Right. So don't take care. It's really good for that. The other thing I remember you saying in the beginning of our conversation is that you work on placement. So do you, do you do the placements or you actually work with senior placement agencies and advisors?

Jaretta 16:21

I work with senior placement agencies and advisors, and they are really my number one referral source. Okay. So tell

Tiffany 16:29

the audience, what is senior placement or a senior advisor? Because not everybody knows that that is even out there.

Jaretta 16:37

Sure, sure, so I would refer to myself as more of a senior advisor, because I can provide insight on resources that help pay for assisted living types of assisted living. I'm more of an educator with administrator background and educate you on what facilities are, what types of facilities might apply to your loved one situation. the expenses, what to look for when you're doing your search, or you're doing your tours and then your placement agencies, they do the same. they will tour you at the facilities. They will identify specifics that meet your budget, your physical needs, your emotional needs financially. they spend a little more time, With an individual, and they coach them, they chaperone them, to assisted living facilities, and they narrow their search down based off of maybe even amenities that they might wish to have. And then, they kind of take the individual under their wing, and chaperone them to different facilities throughout, the area, or adult daycare center. a

Tiffany 17:51

lot of people don't realize that resources out there. and, you know, so it's a little tricky of a resource, obviously, only because, they're going to go to the places that are they're contracted with. But they have the best, I think, especially the local ones, the best education on the communities. And once they get a feel of that family, if they do a really good interview process, they'll almost immediately know the top three communities to go to, that's based on their personality. I think that's super important. families. think, you know, they're looking at one thing like care safety. Mm-Hmm. you know, communication. Mm-Hmm. but the actual resident, the person who's moving in is looking for the things that's going to matter to them. I heard you earlier say that you was, an administrator. So how long have you been in the industry? 10 years. So tell me, what did that progression look like? Did you start off as an administrator?

Jaretta 18:50

No, no, I started off as a sales director, and then worked my way up to executive director and administrator role. So my first facility being 80 bed. 80 bed and 40 adult daycare, for a standard assisted living facility, income restricted. And then I started working with, residential assisted living facilities, which are houses. That operate the same as larger facilities. They're just more intimate and smaller. a lot of people don't know that those are out there as well. They're just houses that were converted into facilities, and they're regulated by the state, just like the bigger boxes. No, um, and they also accept Medicaid to some of them. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So I've operated open three, a couple of those and operated those. And then I have 130 bed ALF that I've operated before as well. so the senior advocacy is much more rewarding to me because I like the one on one. with my families and their loved ones,

Tiffany 19:59

You're helping people with their financial. You know, it's funny because I came from a little bit of a finance background where I worked in insurance and then I had a real estate mortgage and investment. Services company where I was, working with wealth managers, right. Before coming into this When I came into this industry, what I realized, almost immediately, because my first community was a community that wasn't solely income restricted. It was what they call too many income restricted. Like they had too much Medicaid and they were looking to scale it back because Financially, you have to balance that out, especially if you're a bigger box, right? Because you have to be able to pay your bills and pay your staff. So, what was really interesting is that I found that. if I could walk a family through how to afford and look at the longterm, meaning like, yeah, you're going to come in, like you said earlier, private pay for X amount of months, you have enough money to spend down this many months and then you can convert. And so that was my thing, like, you know, to be able to walk a family through their financials. What is your experience with that as well?

Jaretta 21:13

Definitely. So going back to the sales director role, and I remember, you know, when I was at another facility like yours I would have families come in and they say, you know, Jaretta. She's mom's got 20, 000. what are our options? so we say, if she's paying for a grand a month for, her assisted living. That's five months. Her money's going to run out, so then we can, weigh the Medicaid option, but we can start now because we know, it's going to take a couple months to get her physically approved anyways, but we'll spend that 20, 000 down then we'll focus on Medicaid. if there's, family support, because again, Medicaid's only going to pay 14 to 1600 towards, the 4, 000. So the rest has to come from an income or family support, but as we, we try to be creative, as the sales director. compliantly and ethically. the cost of living is getting higher and higher, in a lot of communities now, some of them elect not to accept Medicaid, because they just can't afford to. but there are some out there that do, and there's a misconception out there that Medicaid facilities aren't the cleanest or the nicest or don't have, certain amenities. And that's not true that is false. There are some beautiful. facilities out there that accept Medicaid and that don't have any regulatory challenges. they're licensed they're providing phenomenal care and they're operating, in a positive way, so I want to clear that, misconception while we're on here. There are some. No, Absolutely.

Tiffany 22:48

And there are communities that quote, unquote, aren't Medicaid, right? But they have Medicaid contracts though. So what they do is they specifically target people who need to spend down. And I think families need to know that, you know, where they don't take you incoming already on Medicaid, but if you have a certain amount of assets that you could spend down for a year or two, then they will convert, you know, over, So, because you have to have your unique value proposition of how are you as a community is different than your next community. Right? And so. Working for one of the largest and competing against one of the other largest, the differentiating factor was that we were able to keep our residents in their home longer because we were able to accept Medicaid once they spent down, where the other people once they spent down their money. They gave them a 45 day notice and they had to go. So communicating that to families was. One of the things that really helped me when I first came into the industry so I think that's something good. But one thing that you did say. Which it seems like the industry is struggling with sometimes, is, you said compliant and ethically, right? So what do you mean by that? Because I know, but I want people to understand because there's different ways, like there's so many different angles to the compliant and ethics part because you talked about it. for families. You also talked about for admissions directors or sales directors inside of communities. we also can talk about residential assisted living owners. Like everyone has a different way of being compliant and ethical because it's, Shows itself up differently, depending on who that market or who it is. So can you talk a little bit about that?

Jaretta 24:52

Sure. Sure. So touching on compliance. I associate that with from a regulatory standpoint. so aka, is who's regulates assisted living facilities in the state of Florida. Standards and guidelines that you have to adhere to starting from, generators, the type of residents you have, fire inspections, are these facilities in compliance with these guidelines, to protect the residents and staff members. Basically, some facilities may, I would say, for instance, the type of resident we want to hold on to our residents as a sales director as administrator as long as we can do we bend the rules when it comes to their health? we know that assisted living most assisted 2 person assist. So, if I've had a residence been there for 10 to 15 years, I'm trying to hold on to her. Her health is declining. Is that compliant? Is it ethical? Us being who we are, we love our resident. We're trying our best to provide the care to her, but we might not have the license that allows us to provide that type of care. Right, you know, it's just 1 of those things, where we're trying in our heart of hearts. We want to hold on to our resident, but compliance, you know, from a licensure standpoint, we don't have the license to be able to have this resident in this type of facility, as much as we want to hold on to her. So, that's kind of some of the things I'm thinking of, compliance and, ethics, when you increase the rates on the resident. Yes, you have to, let them know you have to give them a notice. But do all facilities do that? I know some that don't, so that's not really ethical. if, their Medicaid increases their rate, or even if their social security increases for the years, you can increase their rate, but you can't do it without letting them know, so those are some of the more common. challenges, or, when I think of ethics and compliance, some of those things,

Tiffany 26:54

Yeah. And then for families, right? So I had somebody who mother remember so clearly. who needed to move in and needed to, you know, eventually, cause we talked about spin down. So she only had like 50, 000. And so, yeah, with her level of care that she needed, it was going to cost a little bit more. Right. So they probably would have ran out of money and about, I think with our rates back then, about 18 months. And he legit. After her assessment and things like that, she was like, good to go. We're almost ready for moving decides to buy. A canary yellow two door Mustang convertible with her money and so the person who was the Medicaid worker was like, sir, no, you cannot do that. And he was like, oh, I don't understand. He said, it's the transport my mom back and forth to the doctor. This little lady is gonna get into a convertible. And so they made him take it back. He had to take it back. And bless his heart, he didn't

Jaretta 28:05

realize that that's exploitation on a senior. You know, he didn't realize that. You have to be careful. And that's something else that you know, I can do is I can educate, on what to do, what not to do, from a power of attorney standpoint, Mm-Hmm. But, he's just not knowing, you know, he could have that's a felony, but he didn't know anybody,

Tiffany 28:26

yeah, yeah. And his reasoning was so funny, you know, cause I'm like, she's hardly able to like, how is she going to climb into the low seat, you know, convertible walkers

Jaretta 28:36

going to be in the back of the convertible girl, girl, the story. Right, right. one of the things that you mentioned early on was, the spend down. So another goal of mine is to target mainly our business office managers and administrators of the assisted living facilities from a retention aspect. Oh, that's a good one. Yes. Yeah, we have, residents that are private pay, but do we know how long they can afford to be private pay? And what are we doing to ensure that they're not going to run out of money? You know, sooner than later, might have 50 grand, 100 grand, but still that's only going to last so long. The Medicaid planning process, put it in a trust and retain your resident, keep them in your facility, not wait until they're down to their last five grand and say, Oh, we got to give you 45 day notice. Cause you can't afford next month's rent. You know, so let's do our diligence, identify, this demographic early on, let's let them age in place in the same place as long as they can, as long as they can. Right. You know, they meet the, as long as the ALF can meet the needs of the resident from a licensure standpoint.

Tiffany 29:49

Right. I think you hit the nail on the head with that, I mean, at the end of the day, we're supposed to be here to serve, it's astounding to me how many people, have lived in assisted living who have needed care for a long time before even knowing that there is a whole VA aid and attendance benefit that they could have been receiving all this time who would have qualified, right? And now looking for Medicaid, and then you find out that they was a veteran, but they lived in assisted living for five years,

Jaretta 30:19

again, it's just the not knowing it's like we, have to get out here to educate, everybody, on resources.

Tiffany 30:27

that's it. Everybody has to be able to afford it. You can't do it if you, you know, and so the, and knowing what's out there and that's available is really, important. Okay. Well, this has been so great speaking with you. I look forward to, um, hearing all the wonderful things that you're doing for families and for, business owners, and communities, it sounds like you have three different. Things that you're, you're doing that's really helping people, but we're all doing the same, right? You know what I mean? So it's great. So it's educating, getting people out there and then helping them along the way. So thank you again. And, um, for those of you who are sticking around, just make sure you go into the show notes or into the, um, the notes below the video on the profile of the YouTube channel, and you can get in contact with Miss Joretta Love.

Jaretta 31:17

Well, thank you all very much./

31:21

Thanks so much for listening to Serving Boomer Nation. I'm truly grateful you're here. If you found this episode helpful, take a moment to follow and subscribe wherever you're listening and then share it with someone who needs it. Coming soon, I'll be launching a brand new YouTube channel where we'll explore aging through a global lens with stories and insights and lessons from all around the world. And if you're craving clarity in a world that often feels overwhelming, I've got something coming up for you too. A weekly newsletter. Just for this community, You'll find all the links in the show notes eventually. Until that time, let's make aging work better for all of us. Take what you need, share what helps, and come back for more.