The thought of planning for your own long term care may seem strange. After all, you have a retirement fund, have created a Will and Estate plan and if you have children, hopefully they will help you as you age, right? Those still may not be enough. Here are some realistic situations you may face, why you want to plan and how you can begin planning for long term care.
Sudden Change of Circumstances
If you experience a major health change, you need not only your medical insurance, you will also need to have appointed someone on your behalf. Let’s say you are healthy and suddenly you have a medical setback which limits your ability to fully care for yourself. You will need to rely on family, friends or depending on your situation, a professional care provider. Your situation may be short or long term. Either way, you will need assistance. Rather than dealing with your health situation AND your plans for your care, it is much better to have something ready.
No Family Available to Assist
Sometimes a person simply has no family to assist. Family may live far away or be unavailable. There may be no children, siblings or others to care for the person after a sudden change. In this case, having a plan will make things so much easier. This allows you to focus on improving your health rather than worrying about who will care for you while you are healing.
How to Plan for Long Term Care
Planning for long term care involves a number of things. A power of attorney (POA) can designate the appropriate person to handle your medical decisions, financial affairs and personal things. You can have more than one POA for all things but we recommend that you carefully consider having someone to handle only those aspects of your life that you can no longer manage.
Contacting an experienced life planning and estate planning lawyer can help you make the right decisions NOW and be ready for anything in the future. Jason has years of specialized experience to help you along your path in making these plans. Contact Jason here for an appointment or consultation.
