Comprehensive Estate Planning
Written By: Attorney
Jeffrey A. Marshall
, CELA*
Many
people think estate planning is about dying.
But comprehensive estate planning is more about life - your life
and the lives of the people you love. It is about protecting you and
your family by preparing for the future while there is time to plan.
Comprehensive estate planning allows you to:
∙
ensure that your values will be respected and your intentions
followed in the event of your illness;
∙
permit your trusted family members to manage finances and have
access to needed health information if you are incapacitated;
∙
protect your family from the cost of your health care and
long-term care expenses;
∙
provide for family members with special needs such as a
disability;
∙
avoid family disputes;
∙
protect and provide for your family after you are gone.
Creating a Comprehensive Estate Plan
Comprehensive planning starts by planning for the remainder of your
life. You need to create a life plan that will protect your lifestyle
and financial security and help you attain your goals during the rest of
your lifetime.
Especially important is planning for the possibility of our incapacity.
Who should be authorized to step in and manage our finances if
needed? Who should have
access to our personal medical information?
What financial and medical decisions should they be authorized to
make?
What if we need long-term care?
What can we do to make sure we are able to stay at home rather
than in a nursing facility? What
if we do need nursing home care? The
costs are staggering - now over $80,000 a year, with an average stay of
2 ½ years. This can quickly destroy your family’s financial security.
With advance planning you can protect your family from this risk.
If you are married, a comprehensive estate plan will help ensure that
your spouse will be able to live his or her remaining years with dignity
and financial security. At your death, it can preserve an inheritance to
pass along to your family in a manner that will not be squandered
because of inexperience, illness, or a marriage gone bad.
Created with the help of your lawyer and financial advisors, your plan
will show you how your assets can best be utilized for your benefit and
ultimately protected and preserved for the benefit of your intended
beneficiaries.
Implementing Your Plan
Once you have devised your plan, it needs to be implemented.
Implementation usually involves a number of legal, financial, and
health care documents, such as the following:
∙
Power of Attorney
For most people there is no legal document that has
the potential to become as important in their lives as a power of
attorney. In the event of
your incapacity, a power of attorney can help ensure that the desired
decisions will be made for you by the people you choose. A well-drafted
power of attorney will increase the likelihood that your values will
always be respected and that your family can be protected from your
health care costs.
A power of attorney can be the key that opens the
door to effective asset protection planning and the preservation of your
family's financial security. The document, however, must be carefully
crafted in order to authorize this type of planning. The absence of
appropriate authorizations in a power of attorney can seriously
jeopardize your family’s financial security. And a poorly drafted
power of attorney can be a license to steal.
∙
Health Care
Directives and Authorizations
The health care power of attorney and the living
will are documents that give you some measure of control over the
medical treatment you will receive if you ever become incompetent.
The health care power of attorney is more flexible because it is
not limited to just terminal illness situations.
Recent federal rules may be used by health care providers to deny
your family access to your health information and participation in your
care. You need to authorize
the right family members to have access to your information and provide
them with the authority to serve as advocates and decision makers for
you.
∙
Asset
Protection Documents
In addition to an asset protection power of
attorney, specialized deeds, trusts, and other agreements may help
protect your assets in the event that you (or your spouse) should ever
require long-term care either at home or in a nursing facility.
∙
Last Will and
Testament
In this document, you can give important
instructions regarding how your property should be distributed after
your death, who will care for your children and other loved ones, and
much more. Your will helps assure that your assets will be distributed
to the persons you want in the right amounts and at the right times.
Your will can help reduce or eliminate the taxes that will be levied
against your estate, avoid family conflicts, and provide for religious,
educational, or other charitable causes. If you have young children,
your will is the legal document you use to name a guardian for them.
∙
Ownership
& Beneficiary Designations
At your death, the transfer of some of your
property will likely occur without regard to the provisions of your
will. Joint accounts, life insurance, annuities, IRAs and other
retirement plans, and other assets for which beneficiaries have been
named are all distributed without regard to what your will says. You
need to create a plan that covers all of your assets.
Comprehensive estate planning requires a coordinated review and
update of all of your ownership and beneficiary arrangements.
∙
Trusts
Trusts are particularly useful if you have a family
member with a disability. Specialized
trusts can be used to hold funds to enhance the beneficiary’s life
without jeopardizing their eligibility for government benefits.
Individuals and married couples can set up trusts that will
protect their assets from the cost of care in the event of a future
disability. In addition, trusts can sometimes be used to minimize taxes.
The benefits of comprehensive estate planning are
compelling. Once your plan
has been implemented, you will enjoy the peace of mind of knowing that
you have done all you can to protect yourself and your family from
whatever the future may hold. It
is never too early to get started. Just make certain that your estate
planning is comprehensive.
Attorney
Marshall
’s
article was originally published in the Insights & Opportunities
Column of the
Williamsport
Sun-Gazette
on July 2, 2006.
Attorney Marshall can be contacted
at webmail@paelderlaw.com or
at 1-800-401-4552.
Mental
Health Advance Directives
Written
By:
Patti Jo Turner
,
Marshall
, Parker & Associates’
Estate Planning Paralegal
The
general public is becoming more and more educated about estate planning
documents like wills and trusts. There
is even a growing awareness of the differences between two forms of
advance health care directives – the “living will” and the
“health care power of attorney.”
Even so, there is a relatively new form of health care document
that has gone virtually unmentioned - the Mental Health Advance
Directive.
In January of 2005, legislation became effective in
Pennsylvania
that allows individuals to make very specific decisions regarding their
own mental health care before an emergency arises.
These documents include instructions that aren’t spelled
out in most health care powers of attorney.
The Mental Health Advance Directive comes in two parts: The Mental
Health Declaration and the Mental Health Power of Attorney.
They can be used separately or as a combined document.
The Declaration allows an individual to make his choices known
regarding treatment preferences well before a crisis that may render him
incapable of doing so. For
example, the Declaration allows a patient to state a preferred treatment
facility. It also enables
the patient to list medications that cause adverse side effects, a
preference for or against electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), and a
willingness to participate in new drug trials, or experimental
therapies.
In order to establish a Mental Health Advance Directive, an individual
must be 18 years of age and competent at the time of the document
signing. This document is
only valid for 2 years (or
less if it is revoked, or if a new document is executed).
If the patient is incapacitated at the time of expiration, the
existing document will stand.
A Mental Health Power of Attorney allows an Agent (and a back-up Agent)
to be named who can make treatment decisions on behalf of the patient.
The authorized Agent can then confer with doctors in real time to
make the best informed decisions. The Agent can use the Declaration as a
guide. In the case of ECT,
experimental studies, and drug trials, the patient must specifically
indicate on the form whether or not his Agent has the power to consent
to these treatments.
Voluntary and involuntary commitment procedures are NOT affected by
having the Mental Health Advance Directive, but treatment after
commitment is. For those who
suffer from mental illness, these documents can be a valuable tool in
asserting their desires and controlling their lives in the event of a
crisis.
Patti
Jo Turner
can be contacted at webmail@paelderlaw.com
or at 1-800-401-4552.
Beware
of Telephone Scams About Medicare Drug Benefit
Written
By: Attorney Jeffrey A. Marshall, CELA*
Con
artists are trying to defraud older consumers through a number of
telephone schemes related to the new Medicare drug benefit. The schemes
attempt to capitalize on the confusion surrounding the federal
government's new prescription drug program for seniors and disabled
people.
The federal government reports that scammers are
calling seniors with offers to give them a lifetime Medicare card for a
fee. They typically ask for
the consumer’s bank account numbers. The callers may use fictitious
company names, such as Pharma Corp., National Medical Office, Medicare
National Office, and National Medicare.
Government officials say that seniors should not
provide bank account or Medicare numbers to callers unless the senior
initiated the contact. Legitimate Medicare drug plans will not send
representatives to the homes of beneficiaries without an invitation or
ask for payment over the telephone or Internet. Medicare beneficiaries
should ask drug plans to mail bills.
Medicare has been receiving complaints from
Pennsylvania
as well as other states. While
complaints have been made against several different companies,
authorities believe that the companies are the same and are typically
based outside the
United States
. Consumers can report these cases to their local law enforcement
agencies or 1-877-772-3379.
The Pennsylvania Department of Aging and the
federal government remind older adults to protect themselves against
scam artists by remembering:
*
No one can come into your home uninvited.
*
No one can ask you for personal information during their marketing
activities.
*
Always keep all personal information, such as your Medicare number,
safe, just as you would a credit card or a bank account number.
*
Whenever you have a question or concern about any activity regarding
Medicare, call 1-800-MEDICARE.
Medicare beneficiaries in
Pennsylvania
seeking information about the new federal prescription drug benefit may
contact the Department of Aging’s APPRISE program, toll-free, at
1-800-783-7067.
Attorney Marshall can be contacted
at webmail@paelderlaw.com or
at 1-800-401-4552.
Marshall, Parker &
Associates Launches New Series of “Gotta
Know” Classes for Baby Boomers and Their Parents
Written By:
Melissa Bottorf, Director of Marketing & Public
Ed
ucation
There
are some things Baby Boomers and their parents just “Gotta Know”
about planning for the future. Over
the next six weeks, attorneys from Marshall, Parker & Associates and
invited experts will take some complex topics and make them easy to
understand in a series of free, one-hour classes.
Each class will be held at Annunciation Church Hall,
410 West Walnut Street
in
Williamsport
. For more information,
directions, or to register, please call 1-800-401-4552 or visit us
online at www.paelderlaw.com/gottaknow.html.
Attend any or all of the classes that interest you.
Thursday,
August 24 at
6:30 PM
Because You Can’t
Take it With You: All About
Wills, Trusts & Estate Planning
Thursday,
August 31 at
6:30 PM
Who’s in Charge?
Powers of Attorney, Trusts, Guardianships and Advance Directives
Thursday,
September 7 at
6:30 PM
Is Someone Depending
on You? Planning for a
Disabled Loved One
Thursday,
September 14 at
6:30 PM
Caring for an Aging
Loved One at Home
Thursday,
September 21 at
6:30 PM
Getting the Care You
Need Without Going Broke
Thursday,
September 28 at
6:30 PM
Protecting Your Nest
Egg: Retirement Accounts
& Investment Planning
More information is available on our website at www.paelderlaw.com/gottaknows.html
Melissa can be contacted at webmail@paelderlaw.com
or at 1-800-401-4552
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*Attorneys
Marshall and Parker are certified
as Elder Law Attorneys by the National Elder Law Foundation under
authorization from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
