Oklahoma City estate planning lawyers can provide you with invaluable help if you have had a serious medical diagnosis. Being diagnosed with an illness is frightening, but there are tools you can put in place to protect your autonomy going forward. You can also make plans for what will happen as your illness progresses and can make sure your family is provided for.
Parman & Easterday has extensive experience providing compassionate and knowledgeable support to those who have been diagnosed with a serious medical condition. We will work with you to discuss your goals and ensure that you have the right legal tools in place to make sure your future — and your family’s future — is as secure as possible. Just give us a call to find out more.
How Oklahoma City Estate Planning Lawyers Can Help
Oklahoma City lawyers at Parman & Easterday can help you to take care of essential tasks if you are diagnosed with a serious illness. These may include:
- Putting advanced directives in place: Advanced directives will give you control over healthcare decisions in case life-and-death choices must be made when you can no longer communicate your preferences. By working with our legal team to create a living will, you will get to decide if you want to accept or reject care to extend your life. Not only does this allow you to protect your autonomy, but you can spare your family from making difficult choices.
- Creating an incapacity plan: You’ll need to address what will happen if your illness progresses and you become unable to make decisions or manage your own affairs. It can be very important to ensure you have used a power of attorney or other appropriate legal tools to designate who should make your decisions and manage your assets when you are no longer able to do so.
- Making plans for nursing home care: If there is a possibility your illness will progress to the point where you cannot live at home any more, it becomes important to put plans in place so you can afford the costs of nursing home care. It’s also important to make plans if you may need nursing home care at your home. Medicare and most private health insurance policies will not provide you with coverage for basic routine nursing home care or basic routine nursing home care at home. You can get covered only for skilled nursing care, which isn’t the kind of care that most people end up requiring. Without coverage, you could be forced to pay thousands of dollars – even ten’s of thousands of dollars – out of pocket for your care. Parman & Easterday can help you to get this type of care covered, which usually involves making a plan to qualify for means-tested Medicaid benefits. Medicaid will typically pay for the care you need, but you won’t be able to qualify until you impoverish yourself unless you make a plan to protect your assets. And, there is a five-year “look-back period”, meaning you must start earlier than later to maximize the protection.
There may also be other specific tasks you need to complete based on your personal and family situation. That’s why it can be so important to get personalized one-on-one help where you can discuss your goals and fears and get legal advice.
Getting Help from Oklahoma City Estate Planning Lawyers
Oklahoma City estate planning lawyers at Parman & Easterday can provide personalized help making plans for what will happen if you receive a serious medical diagnosis. We can work with you to respond proactively so you can take as much control as possible over your future. That will give you the peace-of-mind of knowing that your family will be provided for and that you have protected your assets. You’ll also know that you’ve taken control over the medical care that you will receive going forward.
To find out more about how our firm can help you with all of your estate planning issues, you should join us for a free seminar. You can also give us a call today at (405) 843-6100 or contact us online to get personalized assistance with all of your legal concerns after a diagnosis of a serious illness.
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