Estate Planning for All Healthcare Professionals
This is the Illinois Healthcare Practice and Consultants Podcast. Our guest is attorney Chase Gentile, a transactional attorney who focuses on estate planning, probate, and residential real estate transactions. Sponsored by the Chicago healthcare law firm of Michael V. Favia & Associates.
Why do people wait until they take an overseas trip to update their estate planning documents? Why is estate planning important to health care professionals and their families? Healthcare professionals work around life and death, sickness and health. Why don’t more healthcare professionals think about their own health, families and estate planning?
According to Esurance, most car accidents happen when driving close to home.
With so much energy spent on caring for others and rising to miracle-worker expectations, it can be easy to put your own needs to the side.
Here is a Business Insider article we recommend, Growing old is getting more expensive.
Now is the time to have conversations with your family, about how to prepare for the future. Easter is coming up, and when the family is home and together, have some of these discussions while everyone is well and happy.
Topics that attorney Chase Gentile will share in this discussion about Estate Planning and Healthcare:
The worst call an estate planning lawyer can receive
When your phone rings the client tells you what they need help with and you wish they would have called you years earlier. Their aging parent needs more than part-time care and you and your siblings cannot agree on care options. Everyone thinks they should be the decision maker but no one wants to assume any financial or time burden.
Over time, expenses increase as does difficulty in handling new situations for which no one prepared. Basic estate planning documents would have helped prepare the family. Listen to attorney Chase Gentile explain how the family could have prepared.
Basic estate planning statistics and details
Healthcare professionals should listen to this estate planning podcast and take some notes about who they want to have power of attorney over healthcare decisions. Even during a routine surgical procedure that requires anesthesia, another may need to make decisions about your procedure.
Chase explains some statistics about estate planning, showing the trends and alarming numbers of people who were not prepared, and easily could have been. Those who are behind in their estate planning come from all walks of life and work. From the wealthy to those of modest means and from celebrities to unassuming people next door, everyone should do something about their estate planning this spring. If not, why wait?
Fact patterns and statistics about aging and special needs
Aging happens. We cannot stop it. When we age, our needs change. Special healthcare needs and paying for the cost of living day to day must be addressed if we are going to have a worth-while discussion about estate planning for healthcare professionals.
Consider a dentist with a busy practice. What happens to the dental practice if the dentist needs to be out for a few days or weeks with a surgical procedure? The business may be able to function without the boss, but what happens if a decision needs to be made? How long could the dental practice close, if it was necessary? All of these issues and succession planning are part of the estate planning conversation for healthcare professionals.
In this estate planning podcast, attorney Chase Gentile talks about the importance of working side by side with a financial planner who can help introduce the matching income generating and investment vehicles and insurance products to support the estate plan and strategy for the future.
Main estate planning documents for health care professionals
All healthcare professionals, at all levels, should have some or all of the following:
- Will;
- Trust;
- Powers of Attorney;
- Living Will.
Powers of attorney for healthcare directives, property management, and appointments to act on behalf of an unavailable principal, should be prepared for everyone. Discuss who will act on your behalf and under what circumstances.
How estate planning fits with other life and retirement planning
Estate planning is part of a broader financial plan for short and long term goals. Estate planning is a function of how you can accomplish your goals, and how much it is going to cost. We cannot predict our future needs but we need to be prepared for all different scenarios. Retirement planning and estate planning go hand in hand.
Estate planning strategy that fits individual health care professionals’ needs
We all want to avoid going to the probate court and paying for the process of court-oversight of our affairs when we pass. It is much better that everyone in the family knows what will happen at that time, beuase our estate planning documents direct all the details when the time comes.
Your family will appreciate the opportunity to make and communicate these decisions while everyone is well and happy. Listen to estate planning attorney Chase Gentile answer more of your questions as you listen to this estate planning podcast for healthcare professionals. Don’t forget to take good notes to follow up.
This podcast is brought to you by Michael V. Favia and the Law Office of Michael V. Favia in Chicago, the hosts of the Illinois Healthcare Practice and Consultants Podcast series. (773) 631-4580.
The Law Offices of D. Chase Gentile are in Des Plaines, Illinois. Their phone number is (847) 795-8880.
This podcast originally aired on the Healthcare Practice Consultants channel on the Blog Talk Radio network on Thursday, March 28, 2019.
