Disability & Illness

With people living longer due to advances in medicine and lifestyle changes, chances are that most of us will become disabled for some time before we die and will need some long-term care. And while we tend to think of incapacity or disability as something that happens when we are older, the reality is that even those who are young and healthy can suddenly become disabled from an accident, an illness or a random act of violence. Unfortunately, too few plan for what is more likely to be a probability than a possibility.   What Happens If You Don’t Plan: Living Probate Most people are familiar with the probate process at death. It is the legal process for changing titles on assets from the name of a deceased person to the name of the heirs, and is required because a deceased pe...

March 31, 2012 marked the seventh anniversary of the death of Terri Schiavo, the 41-year-old who succumbed after her feeding tube was removed as part of a very public legal battle between her husband and parents. As you may recall, Terri Schiavo was in a coma for nearly 15 years after she suffered cardiac arrest and sustained a brain injury. Her husband, Michael Schiavo, alleged that his wife would not want to live in her incapacitated state; she had no written instructions in place. Her parents, on the other hand, suspected that Michael had something to do with Terri’s collapse and argued that she valued life and would have chosen to be sustained. As you also recall, the Florida Legislature, then-Gov. Jeb Bush, and then Congress and President George W. Bush all intervened in t...

Long term care is the kind of care you need if you are not able to perform normal daily activities (such as eating, dressing, bathing, and toileting) without help, and it is expected that you will need this help for an extended period of time, often for the rest of your life. This kind of care is often needed due to aging, chronic illness or injury, and most of us will need it for at least some time before we die. But it is not just for the elderly; a good number of younger, working-age adults are currently receiving long term care due to accident, illness or injury. Long term care can be provided in your home, in an assisted living facility, or in a nursing home. All can become very expensive. Home health care can easily run over $20,000 per year. That's at $16 per hour...

Planning for a Disabled Dependent If you have a child, sibling, parent, spouse, or other loved one who is physically, mentally or developmentally disabled -- whether from birth, illness, injury or drug abuse -- he or she may be entitled to valuable government benefits (SSI and/or Medicaid) now or in the future. Unfortunately, most of these benefits are available only to those with very limited means. As a result, you may find yourself faced with a difficult choice. If you leave a substantial inheritance to your special needs person, he will be disqualified from receiving government benefits which may be crucial for his care. On the other hand, you may not want to have to disinherit him in order to preserve these benefits. Fortunately, a special needs trust will keep you f...

Approximately five percent of Americans have seri­ous, chronic mental illness, according to official government reports, and since 1955, there has been nearly a fourfold increase in the number of reported psychiatric care episodes per 100,000 U.S. population. Regardless of the reasons for this astounding rise, up to half of us may be affected in some way by mental illness within our lifetimes. Yet, reliable sources show that few patients have executed advance medical directives for psychiatric care. Think this information has little applica­tion to you as an estate planning attorney? Consider the following true stories of my personal friends, told with their permission. Details have been modified to protect anonymity.  A professional man in his 50s with multiple advanced de...

In this article, we will focus on an area that will likely apply to you or someone close to you: planning for a loved one with special needs. We will look at the increasing need for this planning; the decrease in government benefits; the concerns families have about providing for their loved ones; whether it is worth protecting government benefits; and planning tips to help you provide for and protect your loved one for as long as he or she lives. The Increasing Need for Special Needs Care and Planning Chances are there is or will be someone in your family (child, grandchild, nephew, niece, parent, grandparent) who will need long-term help managing personal care and/or finances. A quick look at the following statistics confirms that the need for special needs care and planning is...

No one likes to think about the possibility of their own disability or the disability of a loved one. However, as we'll see below, the statistics are clear that we should all plan for at least a temporary disability. This issue of The Wealth Advisor examines the eye-opening statistics surrounding disability and some of the common disability planning options. Most Americans Will Face At Least a Temporary Disability Study after study confirms that nearly everyone will face 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, as the following graph depicts, depending upon their ages, up to 44% of Americans will face a disability of 2.4 to 4.7 years. On the whole...