Best Estate Planning Attorneys in Pittsburgh, PA

If there is a possibility that you or your spouse may need long-term care, it is a good idea to pre-arrange or prepay for the funerals prior to exhausting your assets. There are several ways to do this.

A HIPAA Authorization is a document in which a patient allows another person or persons access to his or her personal health information in accordance with the federal privacy regulations. Everyone going to a doctor or hospital today has to sign these types of papers before medical care is provided.

When doing a long-term care plan, it is a good idea to discuss your needs with an elder law attorney. This plan may include the preparation or review of a will, a power of attorney and a living will. You may also want to discuss having a trust prepared. It might be an irrevocable trust or a special needs trust for a disabled child. You might also want to review your insurance policies or other accounts with named beneficiaries, such as IRAs, 401(k)s or retirement accounts, to check the beneficiary designations, making sure that there are both primary and contingent beneficiaries. It can be helpful to consult with an elder law attorney to make sure that appropriate estate planning is done with regard to the preparation of estate planning documents, taking into consideration your particular family needs, your assets and your goals. Long-term care planning can help to protect assets and can help your family deal with the situation should a loved one need to enter a nursing home or an assisted living facility.

A HIPAA Authorization is a document in which a patient allows another person or persons access to his or her personal health information in accordance with the federal privacy regulations. Everyone going to a doctor or hospital today has to sign these types of papers before medical care is provided. A patient may not want to provide a full medical power of attorney to someone but may wish that person to have access to only certain medical information. HIPAA authorizations may be signed as part of an estate planning process to enable your attorney or some other person to access medical information, such as to help make a springing power of attorney operative.

Long-term care insurance is a policy bought to help deal with the costs of long-term care. Some of the factors affecting the cost include the daily benefit amount ($150/day or higher), the term of the coverage (how many years the policy will pay for) and the length of the elimination period (when the coverage starts), the type of inflation protection and the age at which the policy is purchased. Some of the purposes and uses of LTC insurance are to: Shift risk to the insurance carrier Protect a lifetime of savings Provide security to the family Make long-term care choices easier Protect estate plans It is important when considering a long-term care insurance policy to compare and review policy features for several policies through the use of a long-term care insurance broker. It is also important to compare the costs of different policies and check on the financial strength of the companies using a rating service. An experienced elder law attorney can discuss long-term care insurance with you or help you review policies so that you can decide what coverage, if any, is best for the needs of you and your family.