Volume 10 Edition 12 – 22 December 2020

Financial Care Services, the specialist adviser to seniors in transition to new lifestyles

Thank you for your support in 2020. The team at Financial Care Services look forward to working with you in 2021.

We wish you all a very blessed Christmas and a happy and healthy 2021.

Christmas is still the same: a celebration that Christ, the Son of God, came to earth to be the perfect sacrifice for people’s offenses against God.

But how we celebrate this Christmas might be different from our past practice.

Seniors have been in seclusion for much of 2020. A sudden return to large lively family gatherings could be emotionally overwhelming.
In addition, that period of isolation from the winter viruses and the general germs of society, could leave them further unprepared to meet you all.

Read our festive season tips for maintaining good health and productive family relationships.

Keep calm and carry on with a few short visits to the seniors.

You could all visit granny over the holiday period if just one adult or household visits each day. But anyone who coughs or sneezes should stay away together with the youngsters who cannot sit still for five minutes.

Please subdue your expectations of elaborate gifts from the seniors.

You might be thrilled with excitement of ordering on-line and having packages dropped at your door by strangers. Seniors may be hesitant and/or technologically incapable of ordering on-line or paying electronically.

Also, granny might be suspicious of parcels left on her doorstep by total strangers. But even when she has been reassured that the parcel is harmless, granny might no longer have the flexibility and strength to lift it off the doorstep.

Drink water not more alcohol. Be sure to have plenty of plain water and soft drinks ready for your family and friends.

Before you offer granny an alcoholic drink, please check her medications. Alcohol consumption is incompatible with or not recommended to accompany, many medications prescribed for seniors.

If your elders appear more fragile or more stressed than last summer start applying for additional support.

An ACAS Assessment early in 2021 could generate an entitlement to a ‘Help to Stay at Home’ package and access to Respite Care in an aged care facility. The Respite Care allowance could be held in reserve for when the younger generation are away on holiday or otherwise unavailable to help.

The ACAS assessment process could reveal that the seniors are not coping well at home; they might just be good at covering up their frailty. Memory problems and declining decision making skills make living alone more hazardous.

Ask Christine at Financial Care Services for illustrations of the full costs of aged care entry before selecting a placement. The aged care marketing team might gloss over the Additional Charges when selling you the benefits of their facility.

Remember that Melbourne has more aged care beds available than frail seniors wanting immediate entry to permanent residential aged care. Other States have more balanced numbers of vacant beds and potential aged care residents.

Are you aware that you have an electronic profile

Covid Safe protocols are requiring our personal contact information to be recorded at every venue we visit.

That could means that we have left a trail of digital footprints as we went to the café for lunch, to visit granny at her aged care home and then to church.

These footprints are expected to be wiped out after a few days if no other visitors to those places or their close contacts, test positive to covid.

But do not forget that we already leave a trail of digital footprints as we wander about with our phones on. Plus we leave a digital footprint from every in store electronic payment: an electronic record that we were there and paid for goods or services.

You might also leave an electronic footprint as you enjoy the convenience of online banking and the electronic pharmaceutical prescriptions.

We rely on our service providers not to release any of the electronic footprints. But some people choose to publish their personal information on social media. Once your personal data is released on to the internet you cannot retrieve it any more than you could catch all of the seeds blowing in the wind.

Data Privacy is an expectation of all Australians.

In Australia every entity that collects personal data must have a ‘privacy policy’. The privacy policy tells clients and potential clients how that business or service provider, treats the personal information of their clients.

The privacy policy must be published on their website.
You can read the Financial Care Services Privacy Policy

All new clients and potential clients of Financial Care Services are provided with a copy of the Financial Care Services privacy policy as part of the Financial Services Guide or Client Services Guide.

What information does Financial Care Services collect

New clients complete a ‘Client Engagement Agreement’ to establish a client relationship. You might remember writing your name and contact details on the back page of the Financial Care Services Financial Services Guide or the Client Services Guide for more recent clients.

These contact details are ‘personal information’ not to be released into the ether or published intentionally.

You inserted your name, postal address, telephone number and email into the Financial Care Services ‘Client Engagement Agreement’ and then signed a paper copy. Financial Care Services holds an electronic and /or hard copy of that ‘Client Engagement Agreement’.

Clients requesting advice about residential aged care costs also gave Financial Care Services personal information about the aged care entrant and their partner. Your completed Aged Care Entrant Checklist and your signed ‘Client Engagement Agreement’ contained ‘sensitive information’ in addition to the ordinary ‘personal information’. Sensitive information includes data about your health, intellectual capacity and personal relationships.

Who could read the Financial Care Services client files

Only Christine Hopper has access to the office and files of Financial Care Services. But Financial Care Services could be required to provide client data including personal information, to external auditors and government officials.

The Financial Care Services website does not have a ‘client access portal’. Electronic contact with Financial Care Services is via an externally hosted email system. The Financial Care Services accounting system and client records are not linked to the Financial Care Services website.

How long does Financial Care Services keep client files?

Financial advisers are required to keep the clients’ information for a minimum of seven years after last providing advice to that client.

Financial Care Services still holds some files for clients that we last spoke with late in 2013.

Then what happens to my files.

Once seven full years have elapsed since the client’s last contact with Financial Care Services, their files are destroyed.
Paper based files are shredded here at the office of Financial Care Services. Your paper files do not go anywhere for other people to see them.

All emails and attached data forms are deleted from the Financial Care Services desktop computer system.
Client emails and data forms are never transferred to laptops or personal devices.
Your personal information does not walk out of the Financial Care Services office.

If have a question about how Financial Care Services handles your personal data you could contact Christine Hopper directly.

What if my personal information leaks

Significant leaks of personal data must be reported to Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC).
You must be contacted directly if there is a breach of your personal privacy that could result in significant harm to you. Financial Care Services has not leaked any personal information from our office.

For more information, please contact
the OAIC hotline service on 1300 363 992 or email enquiries@oaic.gov.au.

Christine at Financial Care Services your independent adviser

Financial Care Services is an independent advisory service specialising in retirees of modest means and aged care entrants.
Our core values include working with clients in claiming DVA and Centrelink entitlements.

The team at Financial Care Services are here to answer your Age Pension questions and guide your understanding of aged care costs.

Help with Centrelink challenges is available from Christine Hopper at Financial Care Services, the specialist adviser to seniors in transition to new lifestyles.

Christine has neat handwriting just right for inserting your data into small printed spaces. She helps clients complete Centrelink forms.
Christine could help you with collating your supporting documents and then mailing your form to Centrelink.

Assistance with completing the Commonwealth aged care means testing forms is available to clients of Financial Care Services.

Christine charges fees based on the work involved in advising you about pensions and aged care fee solutions.

To make an appointment for confidential, independent and professional advice about aged care, retirement lifestyle costs, granny flat or Age Pension issues please contact Christine Hopper or call +61 3 9808 0338.

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Disclaimer: The information contained in this newsletter is of a general nature only and does not constitute “financial advice”.
All eligibility for Commonwealth benefits will be determined by Centrelink or DVA, based on your personal position as documented and the legislation and Regulations in force at that time.

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