No one likes to think about the possibility of their own disability or the disability of a loved one. Disability planning is one area where we can give each and every person and family we work with great comfort in knowing that, if the day comes for themselves or a loved one, they will be prepared. Also ensuring that a disabled person can get the care needed without depleting their life savings.
Many families will have a loved one facing at least a temporary disability sometime during their lifetime. More specifically, one in three Americans will face at least a 90-day disability before reaching age 65 and, depending upon their ages, up to 44% of Americans will face a disability of up to 4.7 years. On the whole, Americans are up to 3.5 times more likely to become disabled than die in any given year.
Unfortunately, for many Americans the disability will not be short-lived. Over 1.3 million Americans received long term home health care services as an average. Three-fourths of these patients received skilled care, the highest level of in-home care, and 51% needed help with at least one “activity of daily living” (such as eating, bathing, getting dressed, or the kind of care needed for a severe cognitive impairment like Alzheimer’s disease). The average length of care needs is approximately 312 days, and most of in-home patients were 65 years of age or older. This is where long term care planning is critical.
It is important to plan for possible disability so your life savings does not disappear! Elder Law attorneys know how to set up your assets so they will not interfere with Medi-CAL as public benefit to help pay for nursing home care and maybe in home care! Nursing home costs can consume many Americans’ assets. A recent Harvard University study shows that 69% of single people and 34% of married couples would exhaust their assets after 13 weeks in a nursing home without elder care planning!
Elder law attorneys are trained to help their clients by creating a plan that will prevent the loss of one’s life savings to private health care costs. Often these plans involve the use of trusts (both revocable and irrevocable), expansive powers of attorney for financial and health care decisions, and other important critical legal documents that allows a trusted person to help with assets and asset transfers if needed. It is important to discuss these issues with an elder law attorney…not just an estate planning attorney…. as elder law attorneys help not only with planning for death (preventing Probate) but also saving your assets in case of disability and the need for long term care.
We are happy to give you a free consultation on the phone or in our office…call (818)241-4238.
Remember our motto:
“Failing to Plan is Planning to FAIL!” (Ben Franklin)