As your parents or loved ones age, handling the challenges that arise due to disability or chronic illness become increasingly difficult. You want do what’s best for all involved, ensuring that the elder in your life gets the care and attention they need for as long as they need it.

With this in mind, some traditional Elder Care law firms are transitioning to a new approach— Life Care Planning. What is life care planning, and how can it impact your loved one’s health and well-being?

Life Care Planning vs. Traditional Elder Care Law

Life Care Planning is an extension to Elder Care Law which seeks to plan for the medical side as well as the legal side of things.  While traditional elder care law focuses primarily on preserving your loved one’s assets to pass on to the next generation, Life Care Planning uses the loved one’s assets to preserve their quality of life and independence for as long as possible. Often, a balance of both preserving quality of life and leaving assets to the next generation is what most of our clients opt for.

Working with an interdisciplinary team, a Life Care Planning law firm will work to identify your loved one’s needs, both presently and in the future. They’ll take that information and use it to locate high-quality, appropriate care. When you’ve got a plan in place, there won’t be any need to make hasty, potentially detrimental decisions simply because you’re in the midst of a crisis. Instead, these choices will be made based on your loved one’s needs and desires.

The aspects of traditional elder law are a vital component of Life Care Planning. Services such as asset preservation, estate planning, and public benefits qualification will all be handled by your Life Care Planning team, in addition to care coordination, financial and health care decision-making, family education and support, and more.

Objectives of Life Care Planning

There are three primary tenants of Life Care Planning; these include:

Ensure appropriate care— Whether it’s at their home or in a residential facility, it’s important that your loved one is getting the care they need to maintain their desired quality of life.

Handle cost of care— If you’ve looked into paying for long-term care for a loved one, you probably know that the cost is not insignificant. Life Care Planning will help you find both public and private sources to pay for your loved one’s long-term care, so you won’t be overwhelmed by the ever-growing cost.

Preserving peace of mind— Ultimately, you want to know that your aging loved one is well cared for and happy. Having a plan in place to ensure that they’re getting the care they need will offer peace of mind like nothing else.

A qualified Life Care Planning firm will utilize a model called the Elder Care Continuum that will enable families to better understand the inevitable progression of aging and the many ways that it impacts their loved ones. As they age, people find that changes occur across the board, including in their health, housing, general mobility, and financial resources.

The Elder Care Continuum will help your team determine where in the timeline your loved currently falls and it acts as a visual aid for you to see what the future might hold for you and your loved one. From there, you can discuss the gaps that your loved one’s current care plan has and determine how you can fill those gaps.

Then, you will work with the team to create a customized Life Care Plan that will define, organize, prioritize, and mobilize every part of your loved one’s care. Having a strategy in place will ensure that their quality of life will not suffer as time passes.

If you’re ready to discuss Life Care Planning with an elder care law attorney, we would love to talk. Click here or call us at (614) 310-3110 to schedule a free, no-obligation consultation with an experienced elder care attorney today.