Missouri Elder Law: Legal Help in Branson and Springfield

How Can a Springfield Elder Lawyer Help?

Elder Law addresses issues associated with aging. Such issues include the possibility of disability, the probability of long-term care, and the certainty of death. You need a knowledgeable Springfield elder lawyer who can provide experienced and compassionate assistance with managing your estate.

What is Elder Law?

Elder law encompasses many different issues involved with aging, including medical powers of attorney, living wills, retirement planning, life insurance, and the prospect of long-term care and the expenses of living in a nursing home.

Why do I need to be concerned with it?

These issues will greatly affect you in your later years, so it is important that you consider your options now and make informed, thoughtful decisions. If you don’t take control of your future, the government might decide what happens to your income, wealth, and family. Wouldn’t you rather decide these things for yourself?

When My Future is so Uncertain, How Can I Plan for It?

Through proactive planning, you can ensure your assets are protected and your plan has the flexibility to adapt to your uncertain future. With the help of a Missouri elder attorney experienced in elder law, serving Springfield and Branson, MO, you can begin making some of those difficult decisions.

What Should I Expect When It Comes To Meeting With an Experienced Springfield Elder Lawyer?

Some of the most important choices you will make involve the following:

• Estate Planning: You need to choose how you will be provided for during your life if you are disabled and who will inherit which pieces of your estate, and under what conditions. Estate Planning puts you in control of your property and financial affairs!
• Probate: Probate is the court system’s method of processing a person’s estate after they have died. It can be costly and time-consuming, so your goal is to avoid it altogether. Estate Planning will help you do this.
• Medicaid: Medicaid is the program that pays for your nursing home care if you are impoverished. Medicaid will force a single individual to spend down nearly ALL assets before qualifying. If you plan for this scenario ahead of time, we can help you plan how to get the best possible care while protecting as much as possible.
• Advance Directives: These documents state what you would like to happen if you are not able to make healthcare decisions for yourself in the future. If you don’t prepare this in advance, the court will appoint a guardian to make these decisions for you.

What Is the Purpose of an Elder Lawyer?

So what is elder law? It’s many things! Estate planning, Medicaid planning, advance directives, protecting assets, and more. Elder Law is a broad concept that covers many legal issues within the aging process. It’s an important subject for all of us, but it’s especially critical for those who are concerned about how to pay for the rising costs of nursing home care.

DISABILITY PLANNING IS AN IMPORTANT PART OF ELDER LAW

What will happen if you become disabled? Who will pay your bills, advocate with your insurance company, or protect your assets? Who will make your healthcare decisions? Will a court or doctor make these decisions? Executing strong power of attorney documents and keeping them updated is a crucial part of disability planning that can make crisis medicaid planning possible, if needed.

The reality is this: if you do not have validly executed documents in place providing the answers to these questions, you will no longer be in control when you become disabled. By executing a power of attorney and other crucial documents, you will remain in control through those people you hand-select to be your advocates during a time of disability.

PROVISIONS FOR LONG-TERM CARE

At LifeGen Law Group, our elder law practice is devoted to providing viable solutions to safeguard your assets from the only potential creditor many estates face: the nursing home. We focus on tangible solutions to lessen the burden for individuals and families concerned about future nursing home costs or those who may already be facing these costs.

LifeGen Law Group will help you select the right tools to preserve assets from nursing home costs and can even help limit or eliminate the need to spend down assets. The goal of our elder law practice is to enable you and your family (NOT the government) to control your income and wealth so you are in charge of what happens to your property and assets.

Some of these tools involve proactive planning (assets are protected from nursing home costs for five years), while others are meant to preserve assets when the nursing home costs are imminent. Proactive planning is designed to maximize asset preservation and control, so it is the preferred planning option if you have time on your side. But if you find yourself or a loved one at the nursing home without a plan, it is not too late! Contact us immediately for a no-cost consultation to see how this planning can make a difference for you and your family.

ESTATE PLANNING IS AN IMPORTANT ASPECT OF ELDER LAW

Will there be anything left to leave your beneficiaries when you die? Most people wish to leave something to the next generation. Ensuring you have a plan in place to protect yourself and maintain your quality of life in case of disability or long-term care all but ensures you will have something to leave your beneficiaries upon your passing. With proper elder law and estate planning, both you and your beneficiaries will enjoy the protection elder law planning affords.

Services Our Springfield Elder Attorneys Provide

Making decisions about end-of-life concerns can bring up a lot of emotions and cause discord for clients and their families. Sometimes, what a parent may want will be different from what his or her child had in mind, or a child may feel unable to care for an elderly parent in the manner the parent deserves. Hesitation, fear, and anger may arise, and our Springfield and Branson attorneys, fortunately, have experienced diffusing these emotions and finding solutions that work for everyone involved.

Regardless of age, income level, or stage in life, we offer a suite of services designed to help our clients take full advantage of the government benefits available to them while additionally making plans that allow our clients to enter this next phase with dignity, compassion, and respect. Because navigating elder law issues frequently encompasses a multitude of legal arenas, our clients benefit from our firm’s cross-disciplinary experience in estate planning, succession planning, and more. Some of our services include:

• Estate planning, wills, and trusts: A well-executed estate plan, which often incorporates wills and trusts, is the foundation of elder planning. It ensures that your wishes are respected and that your family is provided for in the manner you deem most appropriate. Our Springfield elder lawyers have extensive experience crafting individualized estate plans that take into account our clients’ unique financial situations and family dynamics.
• Powers of attorney: These documents are versatile tools that allow you to appoint a trusted individual to see to your affairs — both financial and medical — in the event that you become incapacitated. They allow the grantor a great degree of flexibility and, importantly, can be executed and implemented without the intervention of a probate court.
• Nursing home planning: How to pay for nursing home care is a serious concern for almost everyone considering the inevitability of needing around-the-clock care — not to mention the spiraling costs of senior care. While many options are available, a Missouri elder lawyer can help you craft a financial plan that works for you and your family. 
• Medicaid planning (MoHealthNet): Medicaid pays for services that Medicare generally does not, such as nursing home care, personal care services, and transportation. However, Medicaid is a need-based program with complex financial limitations. Our attorneys can help you implement a Medicaid planning strategy to help preserve assets while still meeting Medicaid’s eligibility criteria.
• Division of assets: Not all assets are as easily divisible among heirs and beneficiaries as cash. Some assets such as real property, cars, artwork, jewelry, and businesses, involve more complex valuations and property division strategies. Our attorneys routinely help our clients accomplish their goals by resolving potentially complex asset division issues.
• Veterans’ benefits: Applying for veterans’ benefits — like all government benefits programs — is a maze of red tape that presents many opportunities for pitfalls for the inexperienced. The best way to ensure that you receive the veterans’ benefits that you and your family are entitled to is to enlist the help of an attorney who knows the process of the VA’s policies and procedures.
• Revocable living trusts: Revocable living trusts are effective mechanisms for distributing your estate while avoiding probate. What many people don’t realize is that trusts can also be used for asset management and protection, tax optimization, and long-term care planning.  You may consider implementing a trust as a versatile planning tool after discussing the options with your estate planning attorney.
• Irrevocable asset protection trusts: Irrevocable asset protection trusts, like revocable living trusts, allow you to distribute your estate and avoid probate. However, due to their irrevocability, they offer even more potential benefits, including protecting your assets from creditors, preserving your eligibility for government benefits, and reducing your estate tax burden.
• Probate concerns for surviving spouses or children: Administering an estate through probate is a complex, costly, and usually lengthy affair. Generally, it involves submitting petitions to the court, providing notice to creditors, preparing and filing tax documents, distributing assets to heirs, and closing the estate. While hiring an attorney is not strictly necessary for probate, you can avoid costly mistakes by entrusting the probate administration to an experienced Springfield elder lawyer. 
• Probate avoidance: Avoiding the probate process is a main concern for most individuals. While some estate planning tools (like wills) require probate, there are a variety of other tools that operate outside of the probate court, including trusts, retirement accounts, and pay-on-death designations on accounts. Our attorneys can help you maximize the use of non-probate transfers to minimize and potentially eliminate the hassle of dealing with probate.
• Wealth protection: Growing old is expensive. As such, wealth protection is a key component of any well-executed elder plan.  Our attorneys enjoy working closely with our clients to help them preserve their hard-earned assets well into their retirement years.

Contact a Springfield Elder Lawyer Today for Compassionate and Experienced Representation

Please contact us for a FREE consultation with a knowledgeable Springfield elder lawyer to see what type of planning is right for you. As a law firm devoted to protecting clients in the area of elder law, we look forward to helping you and your family.