Estate Planning v. Life Care Planning: What’s the Difference?

Traditional estate planning is primarily designed to ensure that your belongings and assets pass in an orderly manner after your death, and that they reach the people you intend. That’s an important and admirable goal, but overlooks many critical issues. Just as writing your own will using a form or template can put you and your family at risk, an estate law firm that offers a simple will without advising you of the other issues you should be considering does you a significant disservice.

Failing to look beyond the passing of assets can leave you:

• Without access to care you need later in life
• With the wrong person making decisions if you become incapacitated
• Unnecessarily dissipating your assets during later life or a medical crisis
• Without assets to pass to your loved ones

Life care planning considers these and other issues, with the goal of creating a multi-faceted plan that will provide for your needs during your lifetime and your heirs when you’re gone.

Life Care Planning Protects Your Future and Your Family

The average life expectancy in New Jersey is 80.9 years. With people living longer, it’s no surprise that life care planning is growing in popularity. The average New Jersey resident can expect to live about 15 years beyond retirement. Of course, it’s impossible to predict how long we’ll live, or what type of care might be required during those later years.

A well-crafted life care plan will:

• Ensure that the elderly or disabled person has access to the care he or she needs, whether that means assistance at home or long-term residential care
• Identify sources of assistance in paying for long-term and other care, including both government sources and private options
• Preserve assets to the greatest degree possible while meeting the family’s needs

While many of these needs can be addressed with legal strategy and documents, there’s much more involved in protecting and providing for multiple generations and preparing for a wide range of possible needs.

Full Service Life Care Planning Assistance

Attorney Andrey Milvidskiy has decades of experience in estate planning, elder care, and related matters. He and his dedicated team have developed a trusted network of seasoned professionals to help guide families through every aspect of life care planning. This includes senior care advisers, care managers, accountants, financial advisors and others who can address the physical, medical, financial, practical, and even emotional needs of a family engaging in life care planning.

In addition to preserving assets and securing access to necessary care, this type of professional guidance and advance planning can help the elderly or disabled person to be more comfortable, receive the services best tailored to his or her needs, and in some cases even remain at home longer.

Who Needs a Life Care Plan?

Life care planning, like traditional estate planning, requires advance preparation. While it’s never too late to find the best approach available in the moment, there are significant advantages to engaging in certain types of planning early. For example, the most effective Medicaid planning will commence more than five years before care is required.

Though you can’t know exactly when you or a loved one may require in-home assistance, long-term care, Medicaid coverage, or other services, there are warning signs. If you don’t already have a life care plan in place, you should seriously consider consulting a life care planning attorney as soon as:

• You or an elder family member begins to show signs of cognitive deterioration
• You or an elderly family member requires assistance with day-to-day tasks
• You or a family member have been diagnosed with a serious chronic or terminal medical condition

Whether you’ve seen warning signs and need to prepare for the relatively short-term future or are educating yourself to create a plan for the future, Milvidskiy Law Firm can help. Just fill out our online contact form or call 1-888-893-0999 to learn more.