Dementia Diagnosis: What to Do First in Colorado

The Window for Proactive Planning Is Shorter Than You Think

When a parent gets a dementia diagnosis, the emotional weight of it can overshadow the practical reality: there's a finite window where your parent still has the cognitive capacity to sign legal documents, participate in financial planning, and express their care preferences. Once that capacity is gone, every option becomes harder, slower, and more expensive.

This isn't about rushing. It's about understanding that the legal and financial steps you can take now — while your parent can still participate — will cost a fraction of what they'll cost later, and will give your family far more control over the care trajectory.

Step 1: Get Legal Authority in Place

This is the single highest-priority action item after a dementia diagnosis, and the one families most commonly delay until it's too late.

Durable Financial Power of Attorney. Under Colorado's Uniform Power of Attorney Act (C.R.S. § 15-14-741), your parent can designate an agent to manage their finances — paying bills, accessing accounts, selling property, filing taxes. Colorado financial POAs are durable by default, meaning they remain valid after the person becomes incapacitated. Cost through an elder law attorney: typically $200–$500.

Medical Durable Power of Attorney. A separate document that names a healthcare agent to make medical and treatment decisions if your parent can no longer speak for themselves. This is what gives you the legal authority to sign admission papers at a care facility, consent to or refuse treatments, and access medical records.

Medical Orders for Scope of Treatment (MOST). Under C.R.S. § 15-18.7-101, the MOST form translates your parent's end-of-life care preferences into actionable medical orders. It must be signed by both the patient (or their legal representative) and a physician, advanced practice nurse, or physician assistant. The standard recommendation is to print it on bright green cardstock so emergency responders can identify it immediately.

If your parent can still understand what they're signing, get all three documents executed now. If you wait until capacity is questionable or gone, you'll need court-ordered guardianship or conservatorship, depending on the authority needed — and that costs $5,000 or more for uncontested cases, requires a mandatory court filing fee of $229, a CBI background check, and a court-appointed Visitor investigation. The process takes weeks to months.

Step 2: Understand the Financial Landscape

Dementia care in Colorado is expensive, and standard Medicare does not cover long-term residential care. Understanding the cost structure early gives you time to plan rather than react.

The care cost spectrum in Colorado as of 2025–2026:

If your parent will eventually need Medicaid-funded care, the financial planning starts now because of the 60-month lookback period. Colorado reviews all financial transactions from the five years before a Medicaid application. Any assets transferred, gifted, or sold below fair market value during that window trigger a penalty period where Medicaid won't pay for care.

This means any legitimate spend-down — paying off debts, making home modifications, upgrading a vehicle, purchasing an irrevocable burial contract — should happen strategically and well-documented, not in a last-minute scramble.

Step 3: Organize the Documentation

Start building the file that every subsequent professional — elder law attorney, CMA case manager, Medicaid eligibility worker, facility admissions coordinator — will ask for:

• Current income sources (Social Security, pensions, investment distributions)
• Bank statements (checking, savings, CDs)
• Investment account statements (IRAs, brokerage accounts, mutual funds)
• Property deeds and mortgage statements
• Vehicle titles
• Insurance policies (life, long-term care, health)
• The dementia diagnosis documentation (physician's letter with cognitive impairment confirmed)
• Existing legal documents (any prior POAs, wills, trusts)
• A current medication list

Having this organized before your first meeting with an attorney or case manager saves you billable hours and prevents the kind of incomplete applications that delay Medicaid processing.

Step 4: Contact Your Regional CMA

Colorado's 20 regional Case Management Agencies are the gateway to publicly funded long-term services. Even if your parent doesn't need those services yet, an early contact establishes the relationship and gets you into the system. When needs escalate — and with a dementia diagnosis, they will — you won't be starting from scratch.

The CMA handles intake and triage, the Level of Care assessment (to determine if your parent meets nursing facility level of care for waiver eligibility), and development of the Person-Centered Support Plan that maps out available services.

You contact the CMA based on your parent's county of residence:

• Denver/Adams: Rocky Mountain Human Services (303-636-5600)
• Arapahoe/Douglas/Elbert: Developmental Pathways (303-360-6600)
• El Paso/Park/Teller: The Resource Exchange (719-380-1100)
• Jefferson/Clear Creek: Jefferson County DHS (303-271-4216)

Step 5: Have the Conversations Nobody Wants to Have

While your parent still has the capacity to participate, talk about:

• Care preferences. Do they want to stay home as long as possible? Are they open to assisted living or memory care? Do they have strong feelings about any specific type of care?
• Financial transparency. Where are the accounts? Who has access? Are there debts or obligations you don't know about?
• Driving. If they're still driving, when and how will that transition happen? This is one of the most contentious conversations in dementia caregiving, and it's better to address it during a calm planning discussion than after an accident.

These conversations are hard. They're also dramatically easier now than they'll be in a year.

The Colorado Dementia & Memory Care Guide provides a step-by-step planning framework, legal authority checklist, and Medicaid eligibility tracker built specifically for the early-diagnosis window — when you have the most options and the least time pressure.

See more Colorado guides →