Using A Financial Advisor Can Help Cut Healthcare Costs

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Retirement planning is a stressful time for everyone. With healthcare costs on the rise, it is very important to factor these costs into your overall retirement plan. In the past, financial advisors struggled to accurately forecast healthcare costs and expenses, but new tools have emerged to help. According to a recent Investopedia article, “the Insured Retirement Institute, an association for the retirement income industry, recently teamed up with HealthView Services, a provider of retirement healthcare cost data, to make the HealthView Prime cost planning tool available to IRI’s members.”

Healthcare costs are expected to exceed Social Security benefits for most Americans, making retirement planning a daunting task. According to HealthView, “the inflation rate for basic healthcare is 5-7% per year…that means that majority of Americans living on a fixed income will not be able to keep up with their healthcare costs.” A financial advisor can help ease the pain and costs of retirement planning.

Here are a couple ways financial advisors can help reduce healthcare costs in retirement: 1) Medicare premiums are “means-tested,” 2) “Advisors should be assessing their clients modified adjusted gross income (MAGI), which is used to calculate the higher surcharges.” Lastly, a financial advisor can help strategize as to when you should be withdrawing funds from your retirement accounts and when to begin claiming social security. At the end of the day, retirement planning is a difficult process for anyone. Leveraging the services of a reputable financial advisor can help you to mitigate financial risks and reduce your overall healthcare payments in retirement.

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