People pondering their retirement years often conjure images of spending more time on a favorite pastime or traveling around the country or the world.

Health concerns can intrude on those idyllic scenes, though, not only affecting enjoyment of life but also punching a heavy dent in retirement savings.

"As we age, usually our medical or long-term care expenses increase, sometimes depleting our assets to a level of crisis," says financial advisor Jake Lowrey, president of Lowrey Financial Group, (www.lowreyfinancial.com).

"It's important for retirees, and anyone planning for retirement, to become educated about what the pitfalls are and what they need to do to avoid losing their life savings."

Long-term care especially can burn a hole in savings accounts. In 2012, for example, nursing home care averaged $74,800 a year, according to a report by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

Meanwhile, assisted living facilities averaged $39,500 per year, and home-health services averaged $21 per hour.

More than 10 million Americans need some sort of long-term care, the Kaiser report said. That number covers all ages, even children, but about half are people 65 and older.

"Those older Americans had looked forward to enjoying their golden years," Lowrey says. "They should be able to have actual golden years instead of what can end up being scary years, both personally and financially."

Certainly, being able to maintain good health is a key factor in protecting savings and making retirement enjoyable and satisfying, he says.

But life doesn't always work out that way. Fortunately, there are strategies seniors can use to lessen the impact of expenses brought on by long-term care needs. Lowrey says some of those include :

•  VA benefits. Military veterans may be able to offset nursing home or assisted-living expenses through benefits provided by the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs. A veteran's eligibility for long-term care services would be determined based on his or her need for ongoing treatment, personal care and assistance, as well as the availability of the service in the area where the person lives, according to the Department of Veteran Affairs.

Other factors, such as financial eligibility, a service-connected disability, insurance coverage, and/or ability to pay may also come into play.

•  Medicaid compliant SPIAs. A SPIA is a single-premium immediate annuity. Typically, a SPIA is a contract with an insurance company where you pay the company a sum of money up front (the premium), and the company promises to pay you a certain amount of money periodically for the rest of your life.

A Medicaid compliant SPIA is a specially designed annuity that pays out over the person's "life expectancy" and has other specific characteristics. A couple who put money in a Medicaid annuity are able to avoid having the income from that annuity count against the financial assistance a spouse receives for nursing home care.

•  Setting up a trust. Trusts can help shelter wealth from the look-back periods in Medicaid requirements and assist in qualifying for VA programs, among other advantages, Lowrey says.

About Jake Lowrey

Jake Lowrey is a financial consultant and president of Lowery Financial Group, (www.lowreyfinancial.com), an ethical and professional firm that guides clients to retirement success, including planning for long-term care needs. As a relationship-driven organization, Lowrey and his team educate clients about the newest, most progressive retirement and long-term care planning strategies to assure a brighter financial future.

Changing How You Perceive the Role of Your Investment Advisor
By: Jeff Bucher

On the surface, when people think of an investment advisor, financial planner or retirement planner, what they think of is someone that's going to assist them with making the selections of their stocks, bonds and mutual funds. As you transition into the retirement stage there are many other important areas of retirement that also need to be considered.  Selecting the right retirement guide that will be able to help in all of these areas is crucial for you to have a fulfilling retirement.

We call ourselves many different things, Financial Planners, Investment Advisors, or maybe even Retirement Planners.  Regardless of the title, you probably go to us all for the same thing - to use our knowledge and expertise regarding the financial markets to invest your funds for you. On the surface, this describes the role of the advisor.  However, we feel that this limited role of the advisor specifically covers one period of your investment lifetime, the accumulation period, when you are trying to build and grow your wealth.  As you transition into retirement (the portfolio distribution phase), it's important that the advisor begin to take on a larger role when it comes to your financial well-being.  As an advisor that specializes in the distribution phase, the investment selection must be complimented by a strategy of when best to file for Social Security Benefits, a plan to minimize the amount of taxes that will be due, and a sustainable withdrawal strategy to ensure that your needs will be met for the remainder of your lifetime.

Fiduciary vs. Suitability

When it comes to the investment selection, it's very important to understand what type of advisor with whom you're working. There are two different types of advisors that plan within two different sets of rules. There's the investment advisor, who is held to a fiduciary standard, and then there is the registered representative, or an insurance professional, who is held to a suitability standard. Understanding what standards that they're held to and how they're compensated is part of the investment selection process that, as the consumer, you need to be aware of. The differences are crucial.

A fiduciary standard is a legal obligation where the advisor must act in the best interest of their client and puts the client's best interest ahead of their own.  It is the highest standard of care available under law.  Fiduciary advisors can be regulated by the SEC or state regulators.  An example to explain this standard is an advisor with two identical products that have different fees, who must recommend the one that is lower in cost.  They can't recommend the product that makes more money for them or their company.  A fiduciary advisor is often paid by a quarterly fee that is calculated as a percentage of assets.

According to the FIRNA Industry Professionals manual, the suitability standard requires that a registered representative or insurance professional must have a reasonable basis to believe that a recommended transaction or investment strategy involving a security or securities is suitable for the customer.  This is based primarily on financial objectives, current income level and age, in order to complete a commissionable sale of a financial product.  There is no requirement to find the best investment for you, only ones that are seemingly suitable for you.  They offer a range of products for sale carried by the company he or she represents.  The way that someone with a suitability standard gets paid is by commissions calculated as a percentage of money invested into the product.

Which type of advisor would you like to work with after hearing the differences between the two?

What to expect from a retirement planner

As we transition into retirement, the investment selection is still part of the process, but there's more to expect from a retirement planner.

Important questions we need to ask include :

• How are we going to create an income/distribution plan of these assets that's going to be reliable and sustainable for as long as you live?

• How do we select a social security filing strategy that will best meet our needs it?

• How are we going to protect your standard of living from inflation?

• How are we going to reduce your tax obligations?

• How are we going to position these assets in a way that you still have the liquidity that you need for all kinds of emergencies and related discretionary spending?

• How can we position things in such a way that you have the income stream you need and, at the same time, have the flexibility to handle life's unknowns?

• How can we help protect you from the risks of a long term illness?

• How do we select the right health care plan to best meet your needs and resources?

• How do we protect the legacy that you want to leave behind for your heirs?

Transitioning into Retirement

Again, as we transition into this retirement phase, investment selection is part of the process. But now we need to focus more on an income plan, which encompasses social security planning, tax planning, planning against inflation and health care planning - all of these things are added into the picture. So, during this transition, the perception that you have of your investment advisor needs to take on a new role. Often, with new clients, we find that there hasn't been a transition, which means the client is being greatly underserved.

At Citizen Advisory Group, (www.citizenadvisory.com), our program offers a much more comprehensive approach to the retirement planning side of things. We pull in the investment selection with an income/distribution plan that includes planning for social security, longevity and taxes. We unify all of these different pieces to create a very well-rounded plan. This allows people the safety and security to go out and enjoy their retirement lifestyle and spend their money without the fear associated with running out of money during their lifetimes.

About Jeff Bucher

Jeff Bucher is president of Citizen Advisory Group, (www.citizenadvisory.com), and is an Investment Advisor Representative of AlphaStar Capital Management, an SEC Registered Investment Advisor. He has a life and health insurance license with the state of Ohio. His membership affiliations include the exclusive Ed Slott's Master Elite IRA Advisor Group™, National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (NAIFA), the National Association of Fixed Annuities (NAFA) and the Forum 400. He has earned Top of the Table honors through the Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT).  Jeff has been featured on the Toledo, Ohio television affiliates for NBC, CBS, FOX, and ABC. Bucher is a former standout wrestler at The Ohio State University, where he earned an athletic scholarship and honed his leadership skills en route to earning four varsity letters.

New laws, media attention and public awareness campaigns have placed a greater emphasis on bullying in recent years than perhaps ever in the nation's history.
Yet bullying remains a stubborn problem with far-reaching effects.

More than one in four students, 27.8 percent, report being bullied during the school year, according to a 2103 report by the National Center for Educational Statistics, but most victims never tell an adult.

That's one reason it's crucial that everyone - not just school officials - get involved in the battle, says TV personality Cindy "Rodeo" Steedle, who founded an anti-bullying initiative called Imagine No Bullying Now (www.imaginenobullyingnow.com) and often speaks on the subject at school assemblies.

"It's so important to me because I was bullied as a child," says Steedle, who rose to fame in 2007 as a contestant on VH1's "Rock of Love" and subsequently has made numerous other TV appearances.

Steedle recalls as a teenager enduring the taunts of other girls because she couldn't afford the nice clothes they wore. The bullying didn't stop with words.
"They would hit me on the bus," Steedle says.

The impact of bullying can be devastating. A 2012 report by the Centers for Disease Control said students who experience bullying are at increased risk for depression, anxiety, sleep difficulties and poor school adjustment.

Bullying is bad for the bullies, as well. The CDC reported that students who bully others are at increased risk for substance use, academic problems and violence later in adolescence and adulthood.

"How many times have each of us witnessed an act of bullying and said little or nothing?" Steedle asks. "After all, it wasn't our responsibility. If our kid wasn't involved, we figured, it's none of our business."

That's the wrong attitude, Steedle says. She offers keys to facing up to bullying and doing something about it.

·  No one should make excuses for bullies. Some people claim bullying is simply a part of life. If no one is physically hurt, they will say, "What's the big deal? It's just boys being boys and girls being girls." Those people are wrong, Steedle says. "We must make it clear in our actions and our words that bullying will not be tolerated," she says.

·  Parents should monitor their children's cell phone and Internet use. Bullying takes many forms and it's not always in person. Text messages and social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter can become sources of bullying.

·  Schools must be at the forefront of the battle. Too many schools don't take bullying seriously. School officials need to recognize the depth of the problem, and implement and enforce strong anti-bullying policies.

·  But the problem goes beyond the schoolhouse doors. If we want to eradicate bullying in our communities, we can't rely on schools alone, Steedle says. All public and private institutions need to do more to demonstrate that bullying is simply unacceptable in our workplaces and in our homes.

"This is not a failure of one group of kids, one school, one town, one county or one geographic area," Steedle says. "Rather, it exposes a fundamental flaw in our society, one that has deep-seated roots.

"Until now, it has been too difficult, inconvenient ? maybe even painful ? to address. But we can't keep looking away. We have to stand up and say, 'No more!' It's up to us all to get more involved."

About Cindy "Rodeo" Steedle

Cindy "Rodeo" Steedle rose to fame in 2007 as a contestant on VH1's "Rock of Love," captivating viewers with an appealing charisma that landed her further appearances on seasons 2 and 3 of "Rock of Love." Her other TV appearances include the VH1 series "I Love Money" and "Rock of Love: Charm School" with Sharon Osbourne. Three years ago, to bring awareness to bullying, Steedle founded an initiative called Imagine No Bullying Now (www.imaginenobullyingnow.com). She also is co-creator and Executive Producer of the 2015 Taste of Speed Jet Port Experience (www.tasteofspeed.com), a luxury lifestyle event scheduled May 2 in Atlanta that includes a fashion show, live entertainment, classic cars, celebrity chefs and more. This is the second annual Taste of Speed, which was created to raise money for charity.

Despite decades of medical research and public campaigns to ease the problem, heart disease is the No. 1 killer in the United States and throughout the Western world.

One of the problems driving heart disease is the messaging, says Robert Thompson, M.D., an integrative medicine specialist deemed by his peers to be in the top 5 percent of U.S. physicians. While there's plenty of good research to indicate good advice, the general public, and many of his peers in the medical community, are stuck with faulty conclusions, he says.

"Perhaps the biggest misconception is that an overabundance of calcium, which may include supplements, is very good for people, especially women, but that's simply not true," says Thompson, author of "The Calcium Lie II: What Your Doctor Still Doesn't Know," (calciumliebook.com), a new book that details the roles minerals play in overall health and how to identify and correct deficiencies and imbalances.

Calcium is just one of 12 substances, as well as traces of 64 other minerals, that make up our bones. Excessive amounts of calcium hurt our bodies in many ways, especially the heart and the brain, he says. We cannot possibly replace minerals with just calcium, which hardens concrete and makes bones more brittle.

One study, published in the British Medical Journal in 2008, was meant to assess the effect of calcium on bone density and fractures in postmenopausal women. Researchers found that participating women were significantly more likely to suffer heart attacks while taking calcium supplements.

"This is far from an isolated study - there are others, including 15 studies combined into a meta-analysis yielding similar heart-health results, which show an increased risk of heart disease by at least 30 percent," says Thompson, who offers practical recommendations for what individuals can start doing for better overall health in recognition of American Heart Month, celebrated in February.

•  Drink at least 64 ounces of water a day. As a general rule, we need to drink half of our bodyweight in ounces of water daily. For a 150-pound individual, that's 75 ounces of water. Those who are overweight, or are heavy exercisers or live in warm climates may need more. Take care to drink quality water. Get a quality filtration system at home, which can range from $200 to $3,000.

•  Take ionic sea salt-derived minerals. We all need a diverse range of minerals and virtually none of us get enough. Ionic minerals are the only ones that are completely available for our bodies to use because they are water-soluble and they naturally carry an electrical charge that allows them to be carried through the cell membranes. All sea salt-derived trace mineral products are recommended - at least three grams per day.

•  Use only vitamin supplements made from 100 percent organic whole foods that have been vine-ripened. Almost all of us need supplements because contemporary food supplies lack adequate amounts of vitamins and minerals, thanks to soil depletion. Most store-bought vitamins include just one component of the many complex molecular elements contained in the naturally occurring vitamin source. You need all of the nutrient components to get the full benefits.

•  Get your fill of essential fatty acids; raw nuts and/or seeds are a good source. In 2003, the Food and Drug Administration approved the following health claim for seven kinds of nuts: "Scientific evidence suggests but does not prove that eating 1.5 oz. per day of most raw nuts as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol may reduce the risk of heart disease." Omega-3 and Omega-6 are considered essential because humans can't manufacture them within our bodies. Research has now shown that plant-derived Omega 6, and not fish oil, is the best oil for humans.

•  Eat high-quality proteins. Seafood, eggs, beans, chicken, game meat, duck and turkey are excellent sources of essential amino acids that are the building blocks of every protein molecule, hormone, neurotransmitter, cell membranes and immune molecules. Proteins can also be obtained from grains, sprouted grains, raw nuts and raw seeds. Vegetarians and vegans need to play close attention to combine protein sources to get the full complement of amino acids.

•  Walk at least 30 minutes every day. This activity has a huge effect on relieving the physiologic effects of stress on the human physiology. Exercise is good, but walking is amazing. No other single activity will more significantly or more rapidly affect the adrenal stress response in humans than walking, which probably works so well because it slows us down. And, it is an incredible way to build relationships.

"Also, I recommend ingesting essential monosaccharides, which is new and unknown territory for most people," he says. "They are the simplest form of carbohydrate molecules found in the body, are essential for protein molecules and can be found in maple syrup, sweet potatoes, parsnips, beets and onions."

*Robert Thompson, M.D., was added to the peer-reviewed directory, "Best Doctors in America," in 1996.

About Robert Thompson, M.D.

Dr. Robert Thompson is a board-certified obstetrician and gynecologist, and a nutrition specialist who helps patients get long-term relief from chronic disease, including obesity, diabetes, hypothyroidism and adrenal fatigue. His newest book, "The Calcium Lie II," is available for free at calciumliebook.com. Dr. Thompson received his medical training at the University of Kentucky and has been a leader in medical advances for more than 30 years.