Are you the adult child of aging parents? Do your parents currently live in their own home, taking care of themselves? Are you concerned that one or both of them could fall? Were you aware that when Florida senior adults fall it can cause devastating injuries and have long-term effects on the overall health of senior adults, sometimes even death? However, the good news is that most falls are preventable. By initiating lifestyle adjustments and support from their adult children, aging Florida parents and grandparents can greatly reduce the risk of falling, and the hip fractures and head injuries that too often result. 

Because of the serious rise in falls among seniors the National Council on Aging hosts National Fall Prevention Awareness Week, which this month is September 18-22, 2023. This event offers a wide range of educational tools and materials to learn about the impact of seniors falling and the costs to their families. 

So, how can you help your aging Florida parents? As a family, determine the risk level of your aging parents and whether any additional assistance is needed. For example, have you or your family noticed any of the following warning signs:

• A decline in mental alertness
• A recent fall, or near-fall
• Vision problems
• Balance issues
• Frailty and muscular weakness
• Changes in physical health, such as a recent surgery

You and your family might also discuss another prevention tip, for instance, finding some exercise support groups that offer evidence-based programs, such as Tai Chi. You might also want to help your aging parents set up screening for osteoporosis and have their prescription medications evaluated for side effects, like dizziness, which are also manageable precautions.

You and your family need to take a close look at the home of your aging parents. How does it look? Home safety is very important and you and your family can introduce measures that can further reduce or eliminate your aging parents' risk of falling. Some suggestions would be to:

• Improve all lighting both inside and outside their home
• Remove rugs or secure the edges of rugs to the floor
• Fix any broken floorboards, cracked pavement and other uneven surfaces
• Rearrange furniture to create wide walkways
• Remove any and all clutter and small objects from the floor
• Add grab bars to bathtubs, stairways and toilet areas

A word of caution and advice. If a fall occurs outside the home of your aging parents, it is strongly recommended that you and your family contact a qualified Florida elder care attorney and learn about any right your aging parents may have. Falls outside the home are sometimes caused by negligence and there is little anyone at any age can do to prevent them. Recouped monies may be needed to pay for expensive medical care.

We know this article may raise more questions than it answers.  Our office is here to help you navigate the legal issues related to seeking and covering the cost of memory care. We encourage you to contact us and schedule a meeting with our attorneys.

Are you an active adult working hard to support your family, your business and yourself? Have you been too busy to give any thought to creating a Florida estate plan? Did you know that it is a critical tool that all adults living in Florida should have? With a Florida estate plan you can think about what you want for yourself, your loved ones, your business, and your legacy. In addition, estate planning also makes you answer the tough questions including, but not limited to, what should happen if you no longer have the capacity you need to make your own decisions or who will be your beneficiaries?

So you know you need to plan for your future with a Florida estate plan, but what comes next? It may be to answer this question:  How do you determine the best age to complete your Florida estate plan? As Florida estate planning attorneys, we are frequently asked this question. Below we have five very different situations to present to you that will answer the question about when to create your Florida estate plan.

1. At the age of 18. When you turn 18 it is definitely time to create your Florida estate plan and here is why. Without an estate plan in place, there is no one who has legal authority to make decisions for you in the event you are in a car accident or other crisis. What does that mean? It means no one will be able to pay your bills, access your bank accounts, or talk to your doctors. Your Florida estate planning attorney can work with you to make an estate plan that will protect you and put the people who you want to be in charge of you in place in a crisis. Your Florida estate planning attorney will also talk to you about how to create a legacy and plan for a time when you are no longer here.

2. At the time you marry. Marriage to the one you love is an exciting time. Now is the time to think about how you will protect and provide for each other. The best way to do that is to work with an experienced Florida estate planning attorney and have a Florida estate plan created for each of you.  

3. At the time you have a child.  Planning becomes even more crucial when you begin to have children. Who will take care of them if something happens to you? When should they inherit? How will you provide for their future if you are no longer here? These are the questions your excellent and comprehensive Florida estate plan can answer when you work with a qualified Florida estate planning attorney. 

4. At the time you inherit. It does not matter whether your inheritance is small or large. But it is important that it be protected. Be mindful that the person who left you this inheritance may have had clear instructions for you. In fact,  you may want to copy those instructions in your own estate plan. On the other hand you may have inherited through a messy process that you do not want others to go through. No matter your reason, this is an important time to meet with your Florida estate planning attorney and plan ahead. 

5. At the time you start a business. As you start the process of building your business you need to consider all the ways you should protect yourself, your family, and your business from what comes next and in the future.  Your Florida estate planning attorney can help you not only design your Florida estate plan but be able to advise you on your business planning as well.

We know this article may raise more questions than it answers.  Our office is here to help you navigate the legal issues related to seeking and covering the cost of memory care. We encourage you to contact us and schedule a meeting with our attorneys.

Have you always thought that there could not be anything more shocking than a cancer diagnosis for your parents? When you learn this devastating news, so many questions rush through your head: How much time do we have? What do we need to do? Is there a cure in sight? What health care needs will they have now? What can I do to help? Do they need a second opinion? These are just the start of the list of questions you need answers to in the coming days. 

As experienced Florida estate planning attorneys, we know just how concerning a cancer diagnosis is. Now is the time to not only think about the health care needs of your aging parents but it is also the time to think proactively about their future. You will want to ask questions to determine:

• Do your parents have an estate plan in place?
• Is it current to reflect their wishes?
• Do they have advanced directives in place, such as a durable power of attorney?
• Who do they want to make financial decisions if they cannot?
• Who do they want to make their health care decisions if they cannot?
• Who is the backup decision maker?
• Do they want life sustaining measures taken? 

There is also now the question about whether or not your aging parents will be able to care for themselves. You also may be concerned and have serious questions related to how to find and pay for their necessary care, now and in the future as their healthcare needs change. Be aware that healthcare support can come in all forms for your aging parents. Consider options in the community such as:

• Meal delivery programs
• Transportation assistance to go to doctor appointments and treatments
• Hiring a housekeeper
• Medication management assistance and prescription delivery
• In home assistance programs

The process of finding care for your aging parents can be a heavy responsibility, and one you may not be able to complete without help when you work full time and have a family of your own. The health of your parents may also decline to the point where they cannot live alone or need to be in a safe environment such as an assisted living facility or nursing home. While the first step is identifying the care they need, the next one is to find the funds to pay for it. 

Do you know if your parents have the ability to pay for the care they need? Medicare and Medicaid, for instance, may provide financial assistance with a cancer diagnosis. While Medicare and Medicaid are different programs and can help in different ways. Medicare is the health insurance program for adults over age 65. Many of the available Medicare plans pay up to 80% of the costs of all of the doctor’s visits and diagnostic tests that come prior to a cancer diagnosis, until the health insurance deductible is met. Medicare may then cover the remaining costs for the pre-diagnosis visits. This can make Medicare very useful for patients with cancer until long-term care is necessary. Unfortunately, Medicare has a limited nursing home benefit, paying only for 100 days of care.

Now, if your loved ones need custodial care, then Medicaid may be able to help. This will depend on the income and assets of your aging parents. A qualified Florida elder law attorney can advise you as you walk through the process of obtaining Medicaid services for your loved ones and help you through this challenging time. 

We know this article may raise more questions than it answers.  Our office is here to help you navigate the legal issues related to seeking and covering the cost of memory care. We encourage you to contact us and schedule a meeting with our attorneys.

As you begin the New Year, are you looking into updating your estate plan?  Has it been a while since you pulled out your original Florida estate plan and really examined it? Have there been changes in your life and the lives of your close family? Have there been changes in the laws governing your Florida estate plan? Are you concerned about your plans to protect yourself and your family? 

As you review your current  Florida estate plan, does it: 

• Protect your ability to make your own health care decisions?
• Honor your wishes if you are in a persistent vegetative state?
• Give legal authority to another of your choosing to pay your bills if you cannot?
• Care for your pets and support your caregiver with financial resources?
• Allow your family to protect your assets if you need long-term care? 
• Leave your assets to those you want to provide for at your passing?
• Create a legacy that can outlive you?

All the questions listed above are difficult but they will enable you to think about your current estate plan and what you need to do to update it.  We also have 4 tips to share with you to get you started on updating:

1. Think about who you have chosen to be your agent and act for you in your current estate plan in a crisis, is this person still the person you trust and want to select? Is this person readily available?

2. Do you have the same person acting as an agent for you with health care decisions and financial decisions?  Are you contemplating having a different person for your health care decisions versus your financial decisions?

3. Are you concerned that you had named your spouse, but are now concerned that your spouse may not be up to the responsibility? What should you do now? 

4. Should there be multiple backup people? Also, should you name both of your children to serve as agents together or as personal representatives together? 

Now would be a good time to contact your Florida estate planning attorney to assist you in updating your estate plan.  He will be current with all laws regarding Florida estate planning and probate, federal and state tax changes and more in regard to a comprehensive Florida estate plan.  It is very important to periodically ensure that your Florida estate plan always reflects what you want, memorializes changes to your  family structure if there are any, and gives the legal authority to your decision makers to act in a crisis.
We know this article may raise more questions than it answers.  Our office is here to help you navigate the legal issues related to seeking and covering the cost of memory care. We encourage you to contact us and schedule a meeting with our attorneys.

Are you a Florida senior? Are you finding it hard to believe that the end of the year is approaching? In fact, is it even harder to believe that in just a few short weeks it will be 2023?  Are you busy finalizing your end of the year holiday plans with your children and grandchildren? Do you need to purchase last minute holiday gifts, prepare special family holiday dishes and finalize arrangements to spend time with your family? Actually, as you rush to make sure you have holiday gifts for all your children and grandchildren, we want to recommend the best gift you could give this year that does not even require gift wrapping!

What gift could we possibly be writing about?  We are writing about creating a comprehensive Florida estate plan. This gift will let you make decisions about your assets and their distribution, choose your trusted agents to take care of your finances and your healthcare decisions and protect the legacy you want to continue when you pass away. With this gift you will give yourself and your loved ones peace of mind now, in the future and when you pass away. 

As a Florida senior, are you wondering how to begin preparing an estate plan?  Or do you have a Florida estate plan but have not looked at it in years? Or, finally, did you move to Florida from another state with an estate plan and never thought to make a Florida estate plan? Do you now have questions and wonder how to start? Do your thoughts include questions such as:

• If you become incapacitated for any reason, who could make decisions for you?
• Who will have the legal authority to pay your bills if you are in a car accident?
• Who could handle your business affairs if you could not?
• Do you have any plans for your pets if you were hospitalized?
• Do you want your adult children to be in charge of your finances?
• Do you know if you will need additional insurance policies? 
• Will your retirement plans be able to support you as you age?
• If you have out of state estate planning documents, do you know if they will work in Florida? If there is any concern about them, we advise making Florida estate planning documents.
• Do you know if the laws have changed in the past few years that now makes your planning irrelevant?
• Have there been any changes in your family structure that necessitate the need to update your planning?

All of the above questions are important and we often hear questions just like them from our clients and their family members. As you work with your qualified Florida estate planning attorney to create your estate plan, you need to be assured that your estate plan will work when you need it to. This holiday season, a completed Florida estate plan that lets your loved ones know what you want for yourself and for them is quite possibly the best gift you can give and it does not even need to be gift wrapped. 

Finally, we want you to know that while Florida estate planning is a critical part of your health and well being there is a second planning component that needs to be addressed and completed as well. This is your long-term care planning. Unfortunately, the majority of Americans will need some form of long-term care once they reach the age of 70, so the time for planning is now.  You need to know that much of this care is not covered by Medicare and will, instead, fall on you, the Florida senior, to pay for out of pocket. As Florida estate planning and elder law attorneys we can assure you it does not have to be this way.  We can work with you to create not only an estate plan but also a long-term care plan that can protect the estate plan you are putting in place and allow you to be able to leave a legacy for your family, no matter what the future holds.

We know this article may raise more questions than it answers.  Our office is here to help you navigate the legal issues related to seeking and covering the cost of memory care. We encourage you to contact us and schedule a meeting with our attorneys.