The Elder Care Program at Gudorf Law Group

Watching parents and other loved ones grow older and more frail can make you feel helpless. You want to protect them and care for them. You want to preserve their dignity. And you may worry about their finances and whether they will have the resources to get the care they need, especially if their condition requires long-term nursing home care. The elder care process can seem overwhelming, especially if (like most people) you are juggling numerous obligations.

At Gudorf Law Group, we have helped many families navigate these same concerns. Helping an aging parent can be stressful and most people who must do so have never dealt with the issues involved before. That’s why we have created The Elder Care Program: a system to help families evaluate an older loved one’s needs and put in place a plan to ensure those needs are met.

We’d like to invite you to walk through our elder care process with a fictional family dealing with worries that are all too real for many people.

Meet the Murphys

Our example family is the Murphys:

• Beverly, age 81, widowed homemaker
• Charles, 57, Beverly’s only son who is employed full-time; he lives about five miles from Beverly
• Liz, 54, Charles’ wife who works part-time

Beverly has always been a strong and independent woman. She has continued to live on her own since the death of her husband, Tom, despite health issues that include diabetes and some mobility problems.

Charles and Liz see Beverly once or twice a week, but over the past year they have become increasingly worried about her. Once she got lost on her way to visit them, although she had driven the route many times. When visiting Beverly’s house, Liz observed that mail was piling up unopened and Beverly appeared confused about how to use the microwave. She also seems increasingly frail.

Charles and Liz have persuaded Beverly to move in with them for the time being, and Charles is Beverly’s agent under a durable power of attorney. However, the Murphys are aware that between Beverly’s worsening memory and health issues, she will likely need long-term care eventually.

Beverly has assets that are enough to sustain her if she lives modestly in her own home. But Charles and Liz know, from their experience with Liz’s late father, that Beverly’s assets will dwindle rapidly if they must be used to pay for the nursing home. As they near retirement themselves, they are not in a position to pay for any care that Beverly might need. They know they need to plan for the nursing home; unsure of their next steps, they contact Gudorf Law Group to ask about the Elder Care Program.

The Elder Care Program

Client Organizer

After contacting Gudorf Law Group, Charles and Liz receive a Client Organizer to help them gather information that can be used to analyze Beverly’s situation and begin to make a plan to protect her and her assets. Once they have gathered as much information as possible in the Client Organizer, they make an appointment for a Goals and Responsibility Conversation with one of our elder law professionals.

Goals and Responsibilities Conversation

To prepare for this meeting, Charles and Liz review the Elder Care Program Guide to understand the process of planning for Beverly’s needs. They look over the provided list of items they need to bring to their appointment, and complete a “Your Goals and Concerns” worksheet to clarify the dangers they and Beverly are facing in the elder care process. The worksheet also helps them prioritize their concerns, and consider their strengths and the opportunities they hope a legal team can help them harness to meet Beverly’s needs, such as Medicaid and veterans’ benefits from Tom’s service.

The Goals and Responsibilities conversation is Charles and Liz’s first meeting with the Gudorf Law Elder Care Team. After reviewing the dangers, strengths, and opportunities the Murphys have identified, the team will begin to analyze Beverly’s assets and income as well as her existing estate plan to see if changes are necessary.

Design

In the Design meeting, together with Charles and Liz, the team will design an elder care plan tailored to Beverly’s needs and designed to address the family’s concerns. A substantial part of the plan for the elder care process will be determining how to pay for the long-term care Beverly will eventually need, and how best to help her qualify for government benefits to pay for it.

Action Plan

After the Murphys and the team at Gudorf Law have agreed how to move forward in protecting Beverly’s well-being and assets, it’s time to put the plan into action. Seeking help and resources for an aging loved one often involves a lot of red tape, and frustration for families who are unfamiliar with the system. The Elder Care Team helps Charles and Liz coordinate the services Beverly needs to help her thrive while she lives with them. When the Murphys decide the time has come for Beverly to transition to the nursing home, the team helps with that, too, directing steps to help Beverly become eligible as soon as possible for government benefits to pay for her care.

Application and Approval

When the Elder Care Team determines that Beverly is eligible for Medicaid or other benefits, they file all the necessary applications and documentation with the appropriate agencies. Charles and Liz are especially grateful for this assistance, because they know that incomplete applications or applications with errors could delay Beverly’s eligibility for assistance. The Elder Care Team monitors the status of the case throughout the application process and keeps the Murphys updated. When approval for benefits comes through, the Elder Law Team notifies them, as well as Beverly’s care facility, immediately.

Maintenance Program

Charles and Liz are thankful that the Elder Law Team was able to help them transition Beverly to a long-term care facility not far from their house, and to obtain government benefits to pay for it. For now, Beverly is happy and things are stable. However, the Murphys are aware that things can change, including developments in the law or in the family’s own circumstances.

Fortunately, their Elder Care Plan includes a one-year membership in Gudorf Law Group’s Legacy Club Maintenance Program. Membership gives the Murphys the reassurance that their Elder Care Team will remain available to ensure that their plan will keep working for them, and especially for Beverly.

Navigating the elder care process can be daunting and frustrating, but you don’t have to do it alone. The Elder Care Team at Gudorf Law is ready to work with you and your family from beginning to end.If you would like to learn more about Gudorf Law Group’s Elder Care Team and Elder Care Program, contact us to schedule a consultation.