Long-term care planning at Marsha Goodman, Attorney, PLLC, focuses on the good health, safety, and well-being of the client-elder. We develop a Life Care Plan designed to create continuity of care and an approach for navigating legal, financial, health and housing issues. While asset protection may be a function of a Life Care plan, it is never the purpose of the Plan. Instead, our planning efforts are directed towards bettering the lives of our clients – who are the elders and not the elder’s children or other expectant heirs. Goals of our long-term care planning for the elderly are in this order of priority:
- promoting and maintaining quality of life and quality of care for the elder;
- assisting the elder and his or her family with health care and long-term care decision making for the elder;
- preserving family wealth first, for the benefit of the elder, and second, for the benefit of the elder’s family.
We approach the planning process by discovering with our clients and their families the elder’s place on the elder care continuum and then figuring out what needs to be done to find, get and pay for the most appropriate care.
These issues often arise when someone is discharged from a Skilled Nursing Facility. See the attached brochure for information about that transition.
Marital Status and Family Supports
When the client-elder is married, the husband and wife seldom have the same needs at the same place at the same time—a circumstance that certainly makes planning for both of them challenging. In our planning, we will identify our client’s caregivers. They are vital to meeting the quality of life and care needs of our client and they often need support as well.
- Read More About Marital Status and Family Supports
Housing Options for the Elderly
Understanding the client-elder’s living situation and ADLs provides the groundwork for assessing the housing option that best fit the elder’s needs.
We always ask these three questions:
Where is the elder currently living?
Where will he or she live in the near future?
Where will he or she live in the distant future?
- Read More About Housing Options for the Elderly
Financial Resources
What resources are available to our client? In addition to public benefits that may be available to the client at reduced or no cost, access to long-term care usually depends upon the client’s own resources. Although long-term care is available to persons with limited means, having money gives people more choices. That may not seem fair, but it is a fact of life.
- Read More About Financial Resources
Medical and Health Insurance Coverage
Although some elders have retiree health care benefits, Medicare is the only medical insurance available to most Americans over 65. Our long-term care planning includes maximizing our elder-client’s health care coverage through Medicare, as well as proper utilization of the limited long-term care services available from Medicare.
Medicaid, AHCCCS and ALTCS
For most middle and upper class older persons, AHCCCS (Arizona Healthcare Cost Containment System– Arizona’s Medicaid program) and ALTCS (Arizona Long-term Care System) cannot be relied upon as the solution to financing home care, assisted living, or home health care. However, there are persons with low income and few assets. As well as individuals in a better financial position who have not planned only to then suffer an abrupt illness or accident. Many of these individuals and couples can be helped with a strategy to establish their ALTCS eligibility.
- Read More About Medicaid, AHCCCS and ALTCS
