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What is Life Care Planning?
Your Life Care Plan is Your Road Map
Quality of Life and Quality of Care
Your Care Questions Answered
Other Questions
Your Life Care Plan: One Fee, One Time,
for the Rest of Your Life
When Is the Right Time for a Life Care Plan?
How to Get Started
What is Life Care Planning?
People are living longer. As we age, there is the possibility that a chronic medical condition will
affect our quality of life and require changes in lifestyle. Families who face these challenges may
be required to balance jobs, childcare and taking care of elder family members. The Life Care Plan
places special emphasis on issues surrounding long life. The Life Care Plan connects your concerns
about your physical, financial and legal health in the later stages of your life with our knowledge
and expertise. The Elder Law Practice of Meyers & Avery will be with you and your loved ones every
step of the way to assist you in making the right choices.
Your Life Care Plan
Your Life Care Plan will be customized to fit your desires and needs. It serves as a guide to achieve
your care and asset protection goals. When changes occur, we stay with you every step of the way to
help you turn and follow another road as it becomes necessary. Your Life Care Plan includes elder
law(estate planning and asset protection), care assessment and coordination of services. Learn more
about our Geriatric Care Managers on
our Biographies page.
Quality of Life and Quality of Care
There are three principal goals of the Life Care Plan that we help you develop and implement:
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We help you or your loved one get good care, whether at home or outside the traditional
home setting such as an assisted-living facility, adult family home or, if necessary, a nursing home.
This is the most important of all goals, for it goes to the very heart of your quality of life in your
later years. Your Life Care Plan is focused first on your good health, safety, and well-being.
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We help you make decisions relating to your health care, long-term care, and special needs.
It is a comfort and a relief to our clients and their families to know that they always have a resource
of experienced, supportive, knowledgeable, and objective advisors with them every step of the way.
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We help you find sources to pay for good care, and we will help you spend your money wisely
and prudently on your care needs. We help protect and preserve the assets you have accumulated during a
lifetime of hard work, thrifty behavior, and astute investment decision-making. We work with you through
the maze of choices and options to find the best, or often, the most comfortable solution to the asset
protection problem created by the need to pay for
quality long-term care. [top]
Your Care Questions Answered
We will help you answer your questions about your long–term care and health care choices:
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What health care, chronic care, and long-term care services are available to me? How can I
get the good care I need and desire, whether in my own home, in a residential community, adult
family home or assisted-living facility, in a child’s home, or in a nursing home?
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How will financial and health care decisions be made for me if I cannot make them for myself?
Who can I rely on to make sure that decisions to be made are the right ones?
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If I can’t take care of myself, who will make sure my spouse continues to have a good quality of life?
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If there a health care crisis, what will we have to do? Where do we turn for the help we need?
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How do I know I am getting good care? Who will advocate and intervene for me if necessary to
ensure my right to quality health care and long-term care? [top]
Other Questions
A Life Care Plan helps you and your loved ones answer other pressing questions as well:
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How do I assure my financial security as I get older?
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What public benefits am I entitled to, and what do I have to do to qualify for them?
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Should I rely on Medicaid or other government benefits to help pay for my care?
How do I apply for benefits?
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What kinds of insurance do I need? Should I buy long-term care insurance?
Should I join a Medicare HMO?
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How and when should I distribute my assets? Can I save taxes and avoid probate?
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Do I have to spend all of my money on my care, whether in my home or in a residential care
facility such as a nursing home? How can I protect my assets to take care of my spouse, to
ensure I get good care, or to leave to my children?
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How do I provide for family members with special needs? [top]
Your Life Care Plan: One Fee, One Time,
for the Rest of Your Life
You pay one flat fee for a Life Care Plan. We prefer not to bill clients by the hour for our work.
We have found that most clients and their families do not like hourly billing either. We also have
seen several problems with piecemeal services, and we want to make sure that a client does not limit
the scope of planning services needed simply because of cost. And, where piecemeal services can result
in gaps in service, or worse, greater cost in legal services due to the sheer variety and amount of
services needed in many situations, our Life Care Plan takes these concerns into account.
Your particular fee for your Life Care Plan will be set in advance based upon the following factors:
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Are we planning for a married couple or an individual? Planning for two persons is almost always more complex than for one.
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Is this is a crisis situation? Is nursing home care actual or imminent? Or do we have time to plan?
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How complex will the planning be? We have found that, as general rule, the larger the estate,
the more complex the care planning and asset preservation decisions and plan implementation processes
will be. While it is true that many care planning issues do not depend upon the wealth of the person
we are planning for, a person of lesser means usually has fewer realistic care options.
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How difficult will it be to access public benefits such as Medicaid?
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The one-time fee you pay for your Life Care Plan includes all necessary legal documents, consultations,
and other services, including the services of our Geriatric Care Manager, Certified Elder Law Attorney,
and other members of your Life Care Plan team, necessary to implement your "plan of action."
And, unless you withdraw from the Plan, your Life Care Plan ends only at your death. [top]
When Is the Right Time for a Life Care Plan?
The right time to get a Life Care Plan is immediately after an event that leaves you concerned about
your loved one’s future. Events like those listed below indicate that your loved one’s
condition is changing, even though it could be months or years before long–term care outside
the home is needed.
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A diagnosis of cancer, Alzheimer’s disease or other chronic condition.
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A serious event such as a fall, medication mishap, fire, accident at home or a car wreck.
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A loved one who is wandering, malnourished, dehydrated or unable to care for him/herself due to functional limitations.
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A medical event such as a stroke, heart attack or aneurism.
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Burnout of the loved one’s primary caregiver. [top]
How to Get Started
Please call us to set up a consultation to see whether a Life Care Plan is right for you.
We will review your situation, discuss your options and offer advice to get you started.
Questions?
Give us a call (360) 647-8846
or via email at info@elderlaw-nw.com.
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