What Is A Life Care Plan?

The Life Care Plan is a road map to planning your long term care, designed with your individual and family needs in mind. It is a relationship with the Law Office of Steinbacher, Goodall & Yurchak, for as long as you wish. With our knowledge and expertise, we will guide you through a discussion about plans for the later stages of your life. The Life Care Plan includes your goals and concerns, ideas and options that we have identified as being suitable for your special needs and circumstances.

The Life Care Plan is a planning process that will change over time as you and your circumstances change. Your Life Care Plan is a road map that allows you to achieve your long term care and asset protection goals. And, if changes occur along the way, our services are available to you to help you shift to another road if it becomes necessary.

Life Care Planning

• Life Care Planning began as a concept within the field of litigation; it specified and addressed changes associated with long term health care problems.
• Life Care Planning developed into a Life Care Plan to provide information regarding services related to long term care.
• The International Academy of Life Care Planners published the following definition of the life care plan document:
• A Life Care Plan is a comprehensive method to evaluate and manage your life utilizing all necessary services and resources.
• For a successful Life Care Plan, we must have an understanding of your long term health care goals and needs. Our practice must be knowledgeable about community resources and eligibility for these resources. Additionally, we must be able to identify and develop alternatives for care consistent with patient/family needs. A Life Care Plan represents the integration of these issues to meet your individual needs and goals.

Planning Goals

Like most people, individuals want to be able to plan for their future. To do so means they and their family must understand and be able to anticipate future needs of long term care and any costs associated with it. The Life Care Plan can provide an organized report that identifies individual needs and goals.

We help you develop and implement the three principal goals of Life Care Planning:

1.   Your Life Care Plan is focused first on your or your loved one's good health, safety, and well-being. We help you or your loved one get good care, whether that care is at home or outside the traditional home setting such as an assisted living facility or nursing home. This is the most important of all goals, for it goes to the very heart of your quality of life.

2.   Your Life Care Plan will include the tools necessary to make appropriate decisions for your loved one's care, including Power of Attorneys and Advanced Health Care Directives and the education necessary to use these tools.

3.   We help you find resources to pay for good long term care. We work with you through the maze of solutions to pay for quality long term care and protect your assets.

Answers to Your Questions

• What 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 or assisted-living facility, in a child's home, or in a nursing home?
• How will financial and health care decisions be made for me if I cannot make them for myself?
• If I can't take care of myself, how will I make sure my spouse continues to have a good quality of life?
• Do I have to spend all of my money on the nursing home? How can I protect my assets to take care of my spouse, to ensure I get good care in the nursing home, or to leave to my children?
• Who can I rely on to make sure that decisions to be made are the right ones?

Other questions you may have include:

• How do I assure my financial security as I get older?
• What public benefits am I entitled to and what do I have to do to qualify for them?
• Should I rely on Medicaid or other government benefits to help pay for my care? How do I apply for benefits?
• What kinds of insurance policies do I need? Should I buy long term care insurance?
• How and when should I distribute my assets? Can I save taxes and avoid probate?
• How do I provide for family members with special needs?

Your Life Care Plan is customized to fit your desires, needs and goals. Your Life Care Plan includes all necessary legal documents, consultations, and other services, including the services of a care coordinator, necessary to implement your "Roadmap for Life." Contact the Law Office of Steinbacher, Goodall & Yurchak today to learn more about your Life Care Plan.