Benefits of Hiring an Elder Law Attorney

What is Elder Law?

Elder law attorney refers to an attorney who specializes in providing legal services for the elderly, especially in the areas of Estate Planning and Medicaid Planning. They handle general estate planning issues and counsels clients about planning for the management of assets and health care with alternative decision-making documents to prepare for the possibility of becoming incapacitated. Elder law is a specialized area of legal practice, covering estate planning, wills, trusts, arrangements for care, social security and retirement benefits, protection against elder abuse (physical, emotional and financial), and other.

There are a variety of reasons consulting with an elder law attorney would save you and your loved ones a lot of money, grief and legal hassles including the following:

• Disability planning, including use of durable powers of attorney, living trusts, living wills, advanced directives and other means of delegating management and decision-making to another in case of incompetencey or incapacity Conservatorship and Guardianship
• Estate planning, including planning for the management of one's estate during life and its disposition on death through the use of trusts, wills and other planning documents
• Preservation/transfer of assets seeking to avoid spousal impoverishment when one spouse enters a nursing home
• Medicaid planning
• Medicare claims and appeals
• Social Security Disability claims and appeals
• Supplemental and long term health insurance issues
• Probate issues
• Administration and management of trusts and estate
• Long-term care placements in nursing home and life care communities
• Nursing home issues including questions of patients' rights and nursing home quality
• Housing issues, including discrimination and home equity conversions
• Age discrimination and employment
• Retirement, including public and private retirement benefits, survivor benefits and pension benefits
• Health law matters
• Mental Health law matters

In addition, many of the entitlements, such as Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and "health care reform," are being driven at the federal level. It takes a elder law attorney committed to practice primarily in this area of law to stay on top of the most current changes in legislation.

National Academy of Elder Law
Attorneys, Inc. ™