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Been There, Done That
Jim Kelly gets some tips from his friend Rick
Cueroni on how to go about choosing a
retirement community.Nothing beats a little friendly
advice when choosing a retirement community. So MOAA asked Capt. Jim
Kelly, USCG-Ret., to interview a friend on the subject of retirement
communities. Kelly was perfectly suited for the task. Not only are
he and his wife, Rita, considering leaving Connecticut and moving
into a retirement community, but he also has some journalistic
experience, once having served as the editor of the Coast Guard
Academy Alumni Association’s The Bulletin.
Kelly agreed to ask all
those nosy questions reporters get to ask, and he chose as his
subject a longtime friend, Rear Adm. Rick Cueroni, USCG-Ret. Cueroni
and his wife, Beth, had just moved into a continuing care retirement
community (CCRC) in Florida.
But MOAA didn’t want to leave these
two retired Coast Guard officers who had known each other for years
up to their own devices, so the association sent along Contributing
Editor Kris Ann Hegle to keep them in line.
Capt. Jim Kelly, USCG-Ret.: Rita and I have been talking off and on
for several years about moving to a retirement community. The
problem is we haven’t done anything. We haven’t decided when or
where. Because you and Beth have done it, it would be interesting
for us to know how you decided where to live and what things you
found were important.
Rear Adm. Rick Cueroni, USCG-Ret.:
I guess the first thing, Jim, is
you had both better be ready for it. If a husband and wife are not
in total agreement—forget it! If a couple moves in here and one
wanted to come and the other one didn’t, within two or three months,
they’re gone. So my first bit of advice is to talk it over and make
sure this is what you both want.
Kelly: I see.
Cueroni: The last thing we want to do is put a burden on our kids.
That was our biggest reason for moving here. The second reason was
our health. To get into most retirement communities, one of you has
to be ambulatory. Once we decided we were looking for a continuing
care community, it narrowed things down. I like warm weather, and
our kids are mostly on the East Coast, so we thought Florida would
be the place.
Kelly: What else did you look for?
“The last thing we want to do is put a burden on our kids.
That was the biggest reason for
moving here.”
— Rear Adm. Rick Cueroni, USCG-Ret.
Cueroni: We looked at the health facilities and the proximity to a
military base for prescriptions and golf and other kinds of
recreation. We also looked for a commissary and an exchange and how
close they were.
The accredited communities have waiting lists. Some are quite long—six months or more. Once we started zeroing in on a community, we
wanted to know all about its solvency, which is very important. A
number of retirement communities are borderline solvent, and that’s
something to watch out for when you decide to look.
Kelly: I’ve heard that.
Cueroni: One retirement community nearby gave up its medical
facility. Now it’s really a retirement community with
maintenance-free homes, and the residents have to make their own
medical arrangements.
Kelly: Does your facility have a doctor or a clinic?
Cueroni: We have a clinic in the assisted living facility with
24-hour nurse availability and a doctor on call. We also have a
continuing care facility with around-the-clock care and an
Alzheimer’s unit with its own health staff. They’re all within
walking distance of any place here in the community.
Kelly: Let me ask about your particular housing, the one you and
Beth are in.
Cueroni: We’re in a duplex. There are apartments, duplexes,
single-family homes, and luxury homes, so there are all kinds of
living options.
Kelly: So do you own your part of your duplex?
“The resident endowment … provides that no one will ever be
asked to leave if they fall on hard times financially through no
fault of their own.”
— Cueroni
Cueroni: No. Most CCRCs require a substantial amount of money down,
and they offer different plans that return a percentage of that
payment to your estate. We’re here for life, but if we leave in the
first five years, a portion of our payment is returned, depending on
how long we’ve stayed. We opted for a no-residual plan, which is
less expensive but has no value to our estate. One nice thing here
is the resident endowment, which provides that no one will ever be
asked to leave if they fall on hard times financially through no
fault of their own. It is strictly voluntary, but almost all
residents contribute.
We did look at one continuing care community where you bought your
own place, but then you had to sell it yourself. We looked it up on
the Internet, and there were about 180 houses for sale there at the
time.
Kelly: Wow!
Cueroni: Yes, but some folks feel more comfortable owning their own
place.
Kelly: What kind of costs do you incur? Obviously there must be
maintenance fees, etcetera.
Cueroni: We pay a service fee each month, which varies depending on
the floor plan, and it takes care of everything except our telephone
and rental insurance. All our utilities, cable television,
appliances, and maintenance inside and outside are included. We can
get our house cleaned once a week. Our community is gated, has
roving security 24 hours [a day] with exceptional response to
medical emergencies. The nice part is when we leave on a trip, we
can just lock the door and go. We don’t have to worry at all.
Kelly: Yeah, exactly. Mowing the lawn, cleaning the gutters—I’m
ready to give all that up. Rick, are you reasonably satisfied with
the financial arrangements? You know, what you had to come up with
to live there? In other words, it’s not onerous?
“Mowing the lawn, cleaning the gutters — I’m ready to give
all
that up.”
— Capt. Jim Kelly, USCG-Ret.
Cueroni: It’s not onerous. Like I say, my biggest worry was if the
place was solvent, because it’s a considerable sum of money you’re
putting down.
Kelly: What about taxes? Do you pay taxes on your duplex?
Cueroni: No, you pay a monthly fee, which includes a meal plan of 20
or 30 meals, and everything is paid for except telephone and rental
insurance.
Kelly: With regard to the state of Florida, do I understand they
don’t have state income tax?
Cueroni: There’s no state income tax in Florida. There is sales tax
and an intangible tax on stocks and bonds. But we don’t pay real
estate taxes because we don’t own our duplex.
Kelly: It seems a number of doctors around Connecticut are starting
to shy away from Medicare, and I was wondering if you had found
anything like that where you are.
Cueroni: Yes, we go to a private health care facility nearby that is
world-renowned. They will file with Medicare, but they will not
accept payment from Medicare. So far, though, our out-of-pocket
expenses have been minimal, and the health care we’ve received has
been readily available and excellent.
Kelly: I read somewhere the naval station near you has cut the
formulary in its pharmacies dramatically. Are you able to get what
you want?
Cueroni: Well, so far. The formulary is quite extensive. I
understand all the services are going to the same formulary, so it
isn’t going to make any difference.
Kelly: Right. Are you able to use the other facilities on the base,
whenever you wish — the commissary and the exchange?
Cueroni: Yes, but they’re not on the base. They’re across the
street, and they’re pretty good.
Kelly: Another factor is airports. I’m sure there are airports
around, and that shouldn’t be a problem.
“Our out-of-pocket expenses have been minimal, and the
health care we’ve received has been readily available and
excellent.”
— Cueroni
Cueroni: Compared to where we were near Atlanta, it’s a breeze. It’s
surprising how many nonstop flights you can get out of here.
Kelly: You said there was a waiting list to get into some of these
communities. Did you have a long wait?
Cueroni: We would have had to wait if we stuck with our first
choice, which was a single-family home. When this duplex came up, we
came and looked at it. We liked it, so we decided to move into it.
We visited this community four times. As prospective residents, we
were overnight guests, at no cost, and had breakfast, lunch, and
dinner each day.
Best of all, we talked to many residents, some who have lived here
more than 12 years. A surprising number told us that it was the best
move they ever made or that they wished they had done it sooner.
Kelly: That’s a good idea!
Cueroni: You really need to look at the people who you are going to
be associating with. What we liked was everybody here has some
military background, but it’s not a requirement. The social life
also is very active. In fact, we’ve had more social life in the
three months we’ve been here than we had the four-and-a-half years
we lived in Georgia.
“We were overnight guests, at no cost, and had breakfast,
lunch, and dinner each day.”
— Cueroni
Kelly: We have visited places, but we have never stayed at a place.
We’ve talked to the people there briefly, but haven’t pursued it to
the point you did, such as going there two or three times and
staying overnight. I think that’s important to get a feel for the
place.
Cueroni: Oh, absolutely! We visited some places only once because
they didn’t feel right to us.
Kelly: You know, Rick, you’ve really given me a good insight into
what I should think about, and I really appreciate you taking the
time to do so.
Cueroni: Well listen, you’re more than welcome to visit us. If you
want to do it next winter, you can come and get out of the snow!
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