Elder Law Report
Elder Law Report
How To Prepare For A Long-Term Care Crisis Before It Starts
Hard conversations today can spare your family heartache and expense tomorrow. We walk through a practical plan to prepare for long-term care before it turns into a crisis, starting with simple, consistent communication and moving into the documents and strategies that keep you in control.
We break down the two must-have documents—general durable power of attorney and healthcare power of attorney—explaining how they authorize a trusted person to act quickly for finances, legal matters, and medical choices. From there, we tackle the big question: how do you pay for care? You’ll hear the real math behind private pay, where long-term care insurance helps and where it doesn’t, and how benefits like Medicaid and VA can become accessible when you structure assets within the rules. Our goal is to replace guesswork with a clear path.
You’ll also learn why early planning beats guardianship every time, how deeds and trusts can avoid probate and protect assets, and what a well-built “toolbox” looks like when a health event happens. Think of it as a domino plan: set up the right pieces while you’re healthy, so one call or signature sets everything in motion—bills get paid, care gets coordinated, and your wishes stay at the center. Whether you’re just starting the conversation or already facing care decisions, there are steps you can take to protect savings and dignity.
If this conversation helps, share it with someone who needs a nudge to plan ahead. Subscribe for more elder law insights, leave a review to tell us what you want covered next, and reach out if you’re ready to put your plan in place.
Hello and welcome to the Elder Law Report. My name is Brenton Begley, attorney and partner with McIntyre Elderlaw, and I am joined today by Jane Dearwester with McIntyre Elderlaw. Hello, Jane.
Jane Dearwester:Hi there.
Brenton Begley:All right. Today we're going to talk about how to prepare for a long-term care crisis before it happens, which would mean that hopefully it's no longer a crisis if you adequately prepare. So, Jane, we were talking a little bit before we jumped on about some of the important things that could be put in place. Um and you were talking about, first of all, communication, right? This is not a legal tool. It kind of is because you know what we are as uh attorneys are communicators, but how can communication aid in the effort for preparation for some type of long-term care crisis in the future?
Jane Dearwester:Yeah, I think the way that we've seen this again in communication between family members to stay in touch with your loved ones about any medical diagnoses or uh complaints that they may have. Pay attention if you notice that your loved ones are maybe slipping into cognitive decline and really be proactive about having these conversations. I mean, again, that's not necessarily a legal tool, but it's something that can prevent a crisis by being proactive in plugging in that communication. If you know your mom, dad, grandma, grandpa is going to see the neurologist on Tuesday, maybe on Wednesday, reach out. Hey, how did that go? You know, any anything I need to know about, anything I can help with. So keeping those lines of communication open between family members is a great way to avoid a crisis.
Brenton Begley:Right. And you know, one of the things I say a lot to clients, I say this in my seminars because something I see a lot is family members do not like talking about hard things. Whether it's end-of-life decisions, whether it's decisions about you know mental health, whether it's decisions about long-term care, a lot of people try to avoid that conversation. And rightfully so, it can be difficult for a lot of people to have that conversation. Certainly it can be kind of a bummer around the dinner table. Uh, but it is nonetheless important to have that. And um, you know, a lot of times the opportunity to have that is in front of the attorney. It it gives context, it gives a, you know, it makes it more appropriate to discuss those things, especially in front of somebody who can help advise. So to kind of help lubricate the wheels of that conversation, uh, you can certainly, you know, have a consultation schedule with somebody who deals with these types of things just to get the conversation started, if not anything else. So it's a very good tip. As far as legal tools go, we had discussed powers of attorney. And, you know, we know that really what you're doing in a power of attorney, there's two types of powers of attorney that we would generate. Now, you know, there's all sorts of powers of attorney that you can do out there limited in some fashion, but really the types of powers of attorney that are going to help protect you for long-term care purposes, they're gonna be twofold. It's gonna be the general durable power of attorney and the healthcare power of attorney. And that general durable, as many people already know, is a document that allows you to appoint somebody to act in your behalf as if they were you for legal and financial purposes. That means that anything you can do, whoever you name can do that for you. So you're the principal, they're the agent, that's the nomenclature there. And you're you're naming this person to make legal financial decisions, which they would not otherwise be able to do, but for that power of attorney being put in place. So if something happens to you where you're incompetent and capacitated, it is essential that even a spouse has this authority granted to them before they can step in and make decisions. Same thing with healthcare purposes. So obviously that has an impact if we're trying to get someone qualified for like a benefit to pay for long-term care. Right? Like, yeah, most people think, okay, if I have, if I get to the point where I need long-term care, well, how about they they may not know how they could pay for it. Really, there's three ways to pay for it. Number one, out of pocket. Right. I didn't need to tell you that. You already knew that, but most people can't afford to pay out of pocket, and if they can, they can't afford to do it for very long. Liquidate assets, you know, um get go blow through their whole nest egg just to pay for long-term care at the tune of five, ten, fifteen thousand dollars a month. And then there's long-term care insurance, which most people don't have. And if you are trying to get it, you might be aged out or may have a pre-existing condition that prevents you from getting it. And and even if you do have it, it's really there to supplement the cost of care, create a cushion rather than the cover of the full cost of care. And then lastly, you know, the third way to pay for it is to obtain some type of benefit like VA or Medicaid. Now, typically when I say something like that, people are like, oh, I'll never qualify. But it's it's a game, really, in qualification and figuring out how to take assets that count against you for Medicaid purposes and turn them into assets that don't count against you, right? That's the whole game that we play to help protect assets and get people qualified for benefit to pay for care. And how much of that can be done without power of attorney.
Jane Dearwester:Yeah. Yeah, it's just so important to be proactive. Again, the more proactive you are, the more conversations you have with your family members. Um, if you lean in to asset protection and estate planning now, when everybody's healthy, it's gonna be cheaper. First of all, uh, I always stress this it is so much cheaper to put together, to pay us or another attorney to put together powers of attorney documents than to go through a guardianship proceeding. It's exponentially more expensive. So planning ahead actually saves you money, not to mention the uh the emotional cost of dealing with a crisis situation. When you have a plan in place and a crisis comes up, you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we planned for this. I've got the I've got the fire extinguisher right here. You know, we don't have to let this burn out of control. We we we already did this. We met with the attorney, we have a plan, let's put that contingency plan in place. It takes a lot of the scare factor away because you've got a plan in place. And that kind of relates to a lot of things in life. If you've got a plan, if you've got a good action plan in place, it takes away some of those fears or uh a moment of indecision or inaction in a crisis situation if you've thought about it ahead of time.
Brenton Begley:Right, exactly. And the way that we try to empower folks is with the tools in the toolbox, which are the estate planning documents, whether that's deeds to keep property out of probate to protect it from the probate process, whether it's powers of attorney to empower another person that you trust to act on your behalf, whether it's trust to also avoid probate and help protect assets, these are all tools. And putting them in place beforehand means that you have the necessary tools to um encounter the crisis and get through that crisis in a way that protects what you have, what you worked hard for your whole life, your own decision-making ability and dignity, and that of your loved ones as well. You know, I I think of it, um I had uh growing up, you know, always had a lot of men and women in my life that did construction, things like that. And I always noticed that they had just an amazing amount of tools. You never know what you would need to have um, you know, to finish a job, but they never had to go borrow from another person, never had to go and um pause the job because they had the tools necessary to do the job. And that's what a good estate planning attorney is going to be able to do for you and your family is put in place the tools to be able to um you know encounter that crisis. And then the plan that goes along with it, it's kind of like dominoes. What you want to do is you want to set those dominoes up where all you have to do is hit the first one and it all falls down, and that's where a good plan to help protect those assets can come in. So thank you, Jane. This is great uh foray into what we do on a daily basis, trying to encourage people to plan ahead because we do encounter those crisis situations and we do help people through those situations. So it's not too late if you're in a crisis, but it's always better to plan ahead. If you have questions about what we do, which is estate planning in elder law, then you can give us a call, 704-259-7040, or you can visit our website, mcelderlaw.com, where you can also take advantage of our offer for a free consultation for anyone who watches these videos and has questions or concerns or wants to put those tools in place. Thank you, Jane, and we'll see you next time.
Jane Dearwester:Thanks.