LIFE CARE PLANNING

The Ultimate Protection

Discovering that someone you love has a chronic illness such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, Multiple Sclerosis (MS) or cancer, or suffers from a debilitating condition such as stroke, severe arthritis or other debilitating conditions can be devastating. Life will change in a big way for the whole family. However, you don't have to simply wait around dreading the onset of the next crisis. Instead, you can take action that will prepare you for each step of the progression.

Life Care Planning is a proactive approach to planning for the needs of an elder as he or she becomes more dependent on others to maintain quality of life. Problems that are likely to arise as the elder progresses along the continuum of elder care need are identified and strategies to deal with them effectively are developed.

Life Care Planning takes a team approach to addressing and implementing your care plan. As lawyers, our expertise is in counseling and creating the legal framework for your plan. We also incorporate the services of a professional Geriatric Care Coordinator. Our Geriatric Care Coordinator is the person who evaluates your loved one's particular physical and psychological needs and creates a custom care plan to meet them. The plan also provides guidance for responding to future care needs. Your care coordinator monitors your loved one's care and acts as an advocate to make sure all needs are met.

The plan addresses three major issues that are common to all planning: that is, finding, getting and paying for quality care. However, the plan is customized to your loved one's individual circumstances and preferences. We are experts in the helping you access public benefits such as Medi-Cal and Veterans Benefits, to help pay for long-term medical care. You don't have to "go broke". And you don't have to lose your house – ever!

Our life care planning clients maintain an ongoing relationship with our office. You are not left alone to struggle. We support and guide you through events as they occur.

Case Study: Don and Marie are a married couple in their 70s. They live in Riverside in the house where they raised their 3 kids, Al, Bob and Carol. Al lives in San Diego. Bob is in Texas. Carol lives in Riverside and helps mom and dad.

Recently Don was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Marie and Carol have been providing round-the-clock care themselves but know that he needs more help than they can provide. Marie's health is starting to decline, partially due to the stress of taking care of Don. And Carol, who has been taking time away from her job, needs to go back to work. Al and Bob feel helpless being so far away and worry that they aren’t up-to-date on their parents' needs.

Everyone wants to do the right thing and make sure that Don gets the care he needs. They want to honor his wishes to live at home. But they worry about his safety and Marie's, too. Don and Marie are also worried about spending all of their money on his care and leaving Marie with nothing. They didn't know what to do.

After an initial meeting at the Moynihan Law Firm, they decided to design a Life Care Plan. After meeting with our Geriatric Care Coordinator, they made some changes to the house, which made it much safer for both Don and Marie. Our Geriatric Care Coordinator helped them select reliable and trustworthy in-home caregivers which relieved much of the stress on Marie and Carol. She also recommended a few assisted living sp-facilities for the future. Because Don was a Veteran, they may be able to access the Veteran’s Special Pension to help pay for care in the assisted living facility.

Their legal planning was designed to give Carol authority to help manage their finances. Finally, the plan will allow them to access public benefits to pay for nursing home care if that becomes necessary while protecting the family house from estate recovery.