Elder Law Report
Elder Law Report
Planning Ahead: Safeguarding Your Assets from the Rising Costs of Long-Term Care
Are you prepared for the shocking escalation of long-term care costs, now soaring to over $17,000 a month? Has the increasing cost of elder care and its potential impact on your financial health kept you awake at night? In this critical episode, I, Greg McIntyre of McIntyre Elder Law, walk you through this escalating concern and how best to safeguard your assets and those of your loved ones. I provide a comprehensive guide on foundational planning tools such as general durable powers of attorney, healthcare powers of attorney, wills, and trusts - all designed to protect your assets from the high costs of long-term care.
I delve into the significance of proactive planning and the criticality of appointing a trusted person to manage your financial and legal affairs, should you become incompetent or incapacitated. We explore the nuts and bolts of practical tools like ladybird deeds that can protect your home and control until you pass, allowing assets to be transferred to loved ones without a claim for recovery from a benefits program. Remember, the key lies in planning ahead, and I offer a free consultation to discuss strategies to preserve your assets, control, and how to offset the high cost of long-term care. Tune in to equip yourself with the knowledge and tools to face the financial challenges of elder care.
Hi, this is Greg McIntyre with McIntyre Elder Law and I'm coming to you today with a special Elder Law Report on the inflation of long-term care costs. We have recently seen a spike in long-term care costs north of $17,000 a month, or $204,000 a year. That is an exponential increase. During my practice that has recently just shot up And I would say where it used to be $3,000 to $5,000 a month, now on the high end, being over $17,000 a month, is cause for me to come on and let you know that and cause for alarm. So I wanted to let you know what long-term care costs are now and how you might plan to protect yourself against the cost of long-term care or defray those costs and protect your assets for yourself, your spouse and your children and grandchildren. So foundational planning is so important here.
Speaker 1:The tools that we use are general durable powers of attorney and healthcare powers of attorney. Those are complicated documents that need to be written specifically for these types of situations And we do that on a regular basis. Planning ahead is important. General durable powers of attorney allow you to be proactive. Avoid guardianships So someone bringing a guardianship to claim you might be incompetent or incapacitated and appoint a guardian over you A general, durable power of attorney would let you be proactive and appoint a trusted person to handle your financial and legal affairs if you became incompetent or incapacitated, if you needed long-term care for an extensive period of time and could not handle those, especially when it's positioning assets or when it comes to positioning assets to qualify for benefits Healthcare power of attorney who's going to make your important placement or healthcare decisions if you're in a tough spot and you are unable to? And then using wills and trust to direct assets, also not just when we die but during our lives, so that we may be able to enjoy those assets but we don't put them in danger of being spent down to qualify for a long-term care benefit or sacrifice to pay for long-term care. We employ trust or great tools to do that, and we use those all the time, using deeds like ladybird deeds to protect your home and stay in control of the home until you pass, and then pass those to loved ones outside of a claim for recovery from a benefits program that may need to step in and pay for long-term care for you, and you can do that without sacrificing the house using a tool like a ladybird deed.
Speaker 1:We use tools like this and more, but we implore you, i implore you. Planning ahead is key. So, in an effort to help you plan ahead, i would offer a free consult with our firm to meet with us and talk about how to position your assets, how to keep you in control of assets and how to maximize your ability to defray the high cost of long-term care while receiving great care if you ever need it And I hope you don't, but I know that 70% of seniors are going to need some type of long-term care during their lives and that is a huge percentage. So I would implore you to take advantage of our free consult. I would offer a free consult that you can schedule by calling 1-888-999-6600 or you can schedule online at mclderlawcom. Thank you. This has been Greg McIntyre, a state planning and elder law attorney at McIntyre Elder Law, and this is the Elder Law Report, and we hope you'll stay tuned for great information.