The best Medi-Cal planning starts long before an individual has a need.  Long before any serious illness, and long before there are signs of dementia.  Medi-Cal planning starts by having the proper estate planning documents in place before they’re ever needed.  That’s critical.

Yes, we can often do what we call “crisis planning” when the individual is already in the hospital or nursing home, but if the individual lacks capacity to sign new documents, we’re stuck with either no legal documents at all, or old documents that may or may not work for what we want to do.  And most regular estate planning documents will not allow us to do what needs to be done to get the elder on Medi-Cal.

Medi-Cal planning is tricky.  An ordinary estate plan may be good plan if you die and never need long-term care, but they often won’t work to protect an elder’s assets and get the government to help pay the cost of long-term care.  Many of these plans are simply deficient in this area.  But what happens if these become critical issues for the elder, and the plan doesn’t allow the proper steps to be taken?

What you need is what we call an “elder law friendly” estate plan.  That’s a plan that puts the necessary tools in place just in case those tools are ever needed.  Years ago, flat tires on cars were relatively common.  Although tires are much better now, people should always have a spare tire or a “run-flat tire” that will get you to a repair shop without a tire change.  The likelihood of needing a spare or run-flat tire is slim, but what if…???  What if it’s late at night, you have a flat in a dark and isolated area, and you don’t have the right spare?

What if you have a stroke and can’t comprehend documents or sign new documents, and your existing plan won’t work when you need it to work?  What do you do then?

Don’t put yourself in that position.  Get a proper plan in place, and if you already have an estate plan, get it reviewed by an experienced elder law and estate planning attorney.  We frequently review up to 50 to 70 estate plans each month for prospective clients, and we do this for FREE.  Yes, absolutely FREE!!!

Whether the plan was do-it-yourself, done by a non-attorney, or prepared by an estate planning attorney, we’ll take a look at it and give you our honest opinion.  Our Elder Focus Magazine provides several stories about where things went wrong in an old plan, and those were generally with people who didn’t take the time to get things reviewed by an experienced elder law and estate planning attorney.  Don’t let that mistake hurt you and forever haunt you and your family.  Make sure everything is properly in order.

Too many spouses come to me after the death, stroke, or dementia of the first spouse, only to find out that their estate plan doesn’t provide them with the flexibility that they need to care of themselves and their spouse.  They suddenly realize that they have a huge problem that could have been solved quite easily if they had only had their documents reviewed earlier when both spouses were still able to sign new documents.

We’ve explained a lot of the details in our Elder Focus Magazine, and you can read it on this website here, or jump to the website of the Law Offices of James A. Ward and read it there.