Legal Planning Protects Your Rights and Wishes
Elder law attorney specialize in the issues and documents you need to complete.
Legal Planning Protects Your Rights and Wishes
Elder law attorney specialize in the issues and documents you need to complete.
Be Bold. Be Brave. Be in Control.
A power of attorney can be used for many things, but the most common uses include managing finances, making healthcare decisions, managing real estate and other assets, and conducting business transactions on behalf of the principal. It’s important to choose someone you trust, and to have a conversation with them about what you expect of them before you grant the power of attorney.
500+
US Certified Elder Law Attorneys
51%
Estate disputes over real estate land in court
68%
Americans without a will

Tip #1
Power of Attorney
Appoint trust voices to speak when you can’t.
- Do you have a current Durable Power of Attorney for properties?
- Do you have a valid Durable Power of Attorney for your finances?
- Do you expect your Power of Attorney to perform your banking tasks?

Tip #2
Important Discussions
The Issues You Need to Discuss with your Power of Attorney:
- Have you shared your finances and end-of-life plans with your Power of Attorney?
- Did you appoint a representative to handle your retirement and pension (Social Security), Medicare, and other insurance issues and all other financial matters when you are not capable of performing these tasks for yourself?
- Have you discussed your financial matters with trusted family members?
- Have you organized your legal, personal, financial, and important documents so that trusted family and representatives can find them?
- Have you shared the location of these documents?


Tip #3
Secure Documents
Legal Document Protection is Essential.
Share the location with only people you trust.
Hospitals, nursing homes, rehabilitation units, and home health agencies now document the existence of living wills in their records. Your wishes must be followed when the documents exist in proper legal format.
Notes from the Author
Declare Your Final Wishes in a Living Will
Ugh, death. What a dreadful subject. Nothing is more heart wrenching than watching the one you love to die or being presented with the news of your own mortality. If money could prevent death, I believe we would all be saving our pennies in earnest. So, I propose this holiday season you give your loved ones a gift that money cannot buy.
Many religions believe in the afterlife, so they encourage the true believers to celebrate death as a glorious delivery into a better place. The problem is that incredibly emotional goodbye at the onset of dying that is the worst. Recall your reaction to the news of a loved one’s prognosis. Ugh. So many draining and conflicting emotions. Of course, you don’t want someone to die but you don’t want the suffering to continue either. The choice seems to run from bad to worse.
Do you know how you want to die? Have you written out your final wishes?
Take for example the last ambulance ride and hospital stay at the time of death. Doctors are trained to sustain life and many refuse to spend time counseling patients and families on the course of a natural death. Have you expressed if you want to be resuscitated? Have a feeding or breathing tube inserted?
Here’s the reality once you arrive at the Emergency Department in distress, the hospital machine kicks into high gear. Testing and diagnosing with multiple specialists at the bedside do their very best to stabilize and transfer you onto your next setting. At the end of life this most often mean the ICU – Intensive Care Unit.
I want you to join me in an out of body experience. You are lying arms and legs strapped to your ICU bed with a breathing tube and multiple needles and lines attached to your arms. All you can hear is the beeps and rhythmic percussions of your breathing machine which is the dull background to the weeping and cracking voices of your loved ones.
I would have to search long and hard to identify one person who would choose this as their last farewell. The drug induced state of an ICU is no time or place to say goodbye to those you love more than life itself.
Here’s my challenge to you – complete your medical Declarations and share them. Decide now how you want your final moments and remains to be handled. Then use the upcoming holidays as a time to share them with those you love. REUNIONCare is the perfect place to store and communicate your final wishes in a safe Circle of Care environment.
There is so much confusion when it comes to dying and healthcare in the United States. This new century is an opportunity to create a new approach toward our life and death issues.
The aggressive medical heroics of continuing to treat a terminal disease in hopes of a cure are amazing stories. Terminal care most often focuses on a disease state, an organ system. It’s clinical. It’s like an extraterrestrial has found its way into the body that must be battled. It’s so mysterious. Reality sets in when the aggressive treatment leads to complications, depression, financial bankruptcy and/or some other factor that finally exhausts the viable treatment options.
Hospice is the end-of-life comprehensive care for a gentler sendoff in the final phase of a terminal disease. Hospice takes a team approach for this final journey. Hospice home care takes an interdisciplinary team approach to crafting an individualized, culturally sensitive plan caring for the patient, caregivers, and family members alike. Hospice facilities create a new care model to support and honor the life of the individual.
Palliative care tells the truth about the terminal disease. Palliative care starts at the time of diagnosis focusing on what you hold sacred. Palliative care practitioners have honest conversations about the diagnosis and prognosis not to scare patient but to facilitate acceptance and honest planning. Join us at REUNIONCare in creating a Circle of Care to support this life to death journey.
Consider The Following:
- Do you have a current Durable Power of Attorney for properties?
- Do you have a valid Durable Power of Attorney for your finances?
- Do you expect your Power of Attorney to perform your banking tasks?
- Do you have a valid Will for Social Media accounts?
- Have you executed a will for your property?
- Have you shared your finances and end-of-life plans with your Power of Attorney?
- Did you appoint a representative to handle your retirement and pension (Social Security), Medicare, and other insurance issues and all other financial matters when you are not capable of performing these tasks for yourself?
- Have you discussed your financial matters with trusted family members?
- Have you organized your legal, personal, financial, and important documents so that trusted family and representatives can find them?
- Have you shared the location of these documents?
- Have you contacted a legal professional or lifetime planner to assist you with these tasks?
Monica Stynchula – CEO / REUNIONCare, Inc.