What Is Elder Law Anyway?

Article submitted by Rick Law of Law Elder Law.
For more information, he can be reached at 800-810-3100.

Our actual client is not usually the person who first calls us. More often, we hear first from a family member who is overwhelmed by the burden of caring for a loved one who is mentally or physically declining. Many of the calls concern a loved one who is already deep into crisis and at the end of their options.

Our typical client has a chronic problem that requires custodial care. In other words, our client is never going to get well. The governmental benefit known as Medicare limits coverage to skilled medical attention under a plan of care as authorized by a medical doctor. Medicare does not cover chronic problems; chronic problems that cause an individual to need a nursing home or an assisted living facility were never anticipated to be a benefit provided by Medicare.

The only governmental program that provides benefits for chronic/custodial care is Medicaid. When Medicaid was initiated, it was targeted solely for the poor. But when Medicaid was born, very few individuals needed chronic/custodial care. As a result, our current benefit system provides Medicaid only when someone has a chronic problem and they have impoverished themselves to meet strict asset and income limitations.

A recent survey revealed that over 50 percent of the baby boomers (Americans born 1946 to 1964) falsely believe that Medicare will provide chronic/custodial care for themselves and their parents. They are shocked when they learn the truth-that Medicaid, with its impoverishment limitations, is the only governmental benefit available.

The women carry the weight
The long-term care burden often falls upon the women of the family. In their youth men may be physically stronger than women, but as they age, they are often the first to decline and the first to die. Compounding the problem, men also cling to a false machismo that causes them to deny their own mortality and to under-appreciate the catastrophic burden that their old age frailty will place on their wives or children.

It is a natural part of being male to assume, when presented with statistical data regarding the probability of a long-term care need, to think, "Bad things happen to other people, but that won't happen to me." The result of this attitude is that the women of the family are faced with caring for more and more frail men who have refused to purchase long-term care insurance or to modify their lifestyles to minimize the possibility of chronic illness. Women exhaust their own financial and physical resources caring for the men. By the time the first spouse dies, the caregiver spouse is often so depleted physically and financially that he/she needs long-term care.

We serve the client and more
The needs of our client are and must be paramount. If we serve well, we help rescue the embattled caregiver when hope seems lost. At Law Elder Law, we serve as allies to the heroic caregiver understanding their burdens, confusion, anger, hopelessness, sense of injustice, fear, and loneliness. Every day we work with families and individuals who are in crisis, so it is no exaggeration to say that we feel their pain. We work alongside them, so that they can find a measure of peace of mind, a caring and listening counselor, and possible financial and long-term care assistance. That is how we earn our living, but it is also our mission and our privilege.