Considering elder law and life care planning in Nashville is essential for ensuring the well-being, financial stability, and legal protection of older individuals and their families. It allows for a proactive approach to addressing potential challenges associated with aging and provides a framework for making informed decisions in the best interests of the individual.
What is Elder Law
Elder law is a specialized legal field that focuses on matters affecting the aging population. Attorneys like me who specialize in elder law address legal issues that are particularly relevant to older individuals and their families in the Nashville, TN area. The main aim of elder law is to assist seniors in navigating legal challenges while ensuring their rights, well-being, and financial interests are protected. Some common areas of concern covered by elder law include:
1. Estate Planning: This involves creating wills, trusts, and other documents to manage and distribute assets upon death. It also includes planning for potential incapacity through tools like durable powers of attorney and advance healthcare directives.
2. Long-Term Life Care Planning: Addressing concerns related to nursing homes, assisted living, and home care. This may involve Medicaid planning to help cover the costs of long-term care.
3. Guardianship and Conservatorship: In situations where individuals are no longer able to make decisions for themselves due to incapacity, elder law attorneys may assist in appointing guardians or conservators to make decisions on their behalf.
4. Medicaid Planning: Assisting clients in understanding and navigating government healthcare programs like Medicaid and Medicare to ensure appropriate coverage.
5. Probate and Estate Administration: Handling the legal process of distributing assets and settling debts after an individual passes away.
What is Life Care Planning?
The practice of Elder Law is about more than stuff; it’s about our clients’ quality of life. As our clients get older, they may need to make decisions about long-term care insurance, access to treatment, Medicare, reverse mortgages, Veterans benefits, Medicaid, housing, and so many other issues. When we help our Nashville seniors with these basics of careful living, we also help their care providers avoid becoming too overwhelmed.
Our clients get legal advice on all these topics, but some of them also need help with managing chronic conditions. Someone turning 65 today has an almost 70% chance of needing some type of long-term care services. Over 40% of the general population will eventually need to stay in a nursing home (that number is heavily weighted towards women.) For adults 60 and older, 95% of them have at least one chronic condition, while nearly 80% of them have two or more chronic conditions.
Getting older is, in fact, extremely complicated. Many of the conditions that cause death in the United States—stroke, dementia, accidents, and other health problems—can also cause extensive periods of disability. Therefore, in addition to our legal services, we assign our clients a Care Coordinator and a social worker with a deep knowledge of the senior care industry and life care planning.
The Care Coordinator Role in Life Care Planning
The usual chronic illness care may come down to brief visits with a doctor who focuses on lab reports and symptom management. Families receive little or no help with evaluating their loved one’s housing situation, financial stability, self-care, or access to family support. A Care Coordinator provides much-needed advice on those topics.
The first step in working with a Care Coordinator is establishing the relationship. We want our Nashville clients to get to know and trust us as the Care Coordinator is a strong link in Life Care Planning cases.
The main priority of a care coordinator is to help seniors and their families maintain the quality of life they desire. At Elder Law of Nashville, our team will provide education and resources for:
- Care assessments
- In-home help or care
- Coordination with medical and healthcare providers
- Support and guidance during a crisis
- Transitions to a retirement community, assisted care facility, or nursing home.
When You Would Be Interested in Life Care Planning
- When you or a loved one has a chronic condition that is becoming difficult to manage.
- When you or your family have an elevated level of anxiety.
- When you or a loved one has started down the road of one crisis after another.
- When your family lives out of town or you have no family to rely on.
- When your family is not getting along.
- When you are concerned about maintaining your standard of living.
Elder Law of Nashville works closely with our clients to develop comprehensive plans that address their unique needs and concerns as they age. We specialize in combining legal expertise with an understanding of the social, medical, and financial issues facing seniors.
Please contact us if you need the peace of mind that our life care planning can provide.