Next Steps : A Practical Guide to Planning for the Best Half of Your Life

by Unknown

• ISBN13: 9781884956966
• ISBN10: 1884956963
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2009-08-01
• Publisher: Ingram Pub Services

Summary

Written for older Americans, their Baby Boomer children, and everyone who cares for an older family member, this practical and comprehensive guide will help you build a strategy for coping with the unique legal, medical, financial, and personal challenges of aging.Jan Warner and Jan Collins, America's trusted experts on later life planning, put decades of experience into helping you create a step-by-step plan to protect your assets, your family, your health, and your personal autonomy in later life.In Next Steps, you will learn how to build a team of trusted legal, financial, and medical professionals to protect your interests; what should be included in important documents such as wills and financial and medical powers of attorney; the pros and cons of living trusts and reverse mortgages; the basics of Medicare and Medicaid; how to avoid scams that target the elderly; and how to live with adult children.You will also learn how to make the right choices in health-care and long-term care planning, and even how to deal with the most sensitive aspects of later life, including divorce, remarriage, incapacity, and protection of your rights in a nursing home.Next Steps: A Practical Guide to Planning for the Best Half of Your Life is a must-have guide to protecting your future, your family, and your finances in the second half of life.

Author Biography

Jan Warner is a lawyer who has maintained an active law practice in the matrimonial and eldery law areas for more than 30 years. He is the creator and coauthor of "Flying Solo®," a weekly newspaper column about divorce and separation, and "NextSteps®," a weekly newspaper column about matters affecting the elederly and disabled. Jan Collins is a writer and journalist who is the coauthor of "Flying Solo®" and "NextSteps®." She is the editor of Business & Economic Review and a special correspondent for The Economist. They both live in Columbia, South Carolina.

Table of Contents

Prologue	p. ix
Introduction	p. xi
Choosing Your Team and Making It Work
Putting Together the Right Team for You	p. 3
Working with Your Team	p. 15
Preparing the Necessary Documents
What You'll Need for Your Plan	p. 27
Potential Pitfalls and Lifelines	p. 37
Asset Management Tools	p. 57
Implementing Your Plan Should You or a Spouse Become Chronically Ill or Incapacitated
Health-Care Planning	p. 75
Long-Term Care Issues, Level-of-Care Decisions, and Payment Options	p. 87
Understanding the Basics of Medicaid	p. 99
Patients' Rights in Nursing Homes and Assisted-Living Facilities	p. 117
Other Considerations
Divorce-Especially When You're Older	p. 133
Divorce-What You Need to Know at Any Age	p. 149
Second, Third, and Beyond Marriages	p. 179
Cohabitation and Domestic Partnerships	p. 185
The End of the Line
Burial Disputes and Organ Donation	p. 221
Planning for Pets	p. 233
Epilogue	p. 241
Glossary	p. 245
Web Resources	p. 249
Index	p. 252
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.