How to Choose People to Represent You, Part 2

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

The following podcast is by Mr Jim Koewler, elder law and special needs attorney, helping and protecting those who need long term care. And Welcome back to answers for Alder’s Radio Network. And we are here with Jim Koewler at elder law, attorney in the Richfield, Ohio, area, isn’t it, Jim? is where you’re located? Yeah, Richfield, Ohio, halfway. Yes, an actor. Awesome, awesome. Well, I am excited, noted at the moment, by the way, are you really yeah? We’ve got to do them. The storm has been going on for almost twenty four hours and it’s supposed to last about another fifteen plus. Your heart. Well, good thing you work it from your Home Office there, sir. Right now today almost everyone is yeah, yeah, so that’s good. So we are here talking about who are the individuals that used to should select, and our first segment we talked a lot about, you know, power of attorney and who that individual should be, and obviously I want to kind of pick up where we left off there. So we’re talking about somebody that can really have just summary, somebody that’s got some chops, that can deal with conflict and deal with scenarios and I think. The other thing I’d be remiss to bring up the fact that there’s strife between siblings and families. Oh, I don’t work about that. Never happens. What are you? What do you mean? Yeah, exactly. Friend of my play other side of it, isn’t it? Yeah, a friend of mine coined the the phrase family is the other F word. Yes, and it fits perfectly. I wish I’d thought of it, but I didn’t. Sydney, Camp and Arrow, I love you, sweetheart. That was a great line, yes, but yeah, it that. So whoever is going to be the aid, bet on your power of Triney, and please don’t name more than one agent. Don’t name coagents. You can name successors, but name one person at a time, because you want one decision maker. If you’ve got two and they don’t agree, then there is no decision. You’re stuck in the status quote. Right, okay, there is no power. Try by committee. Here’s an example I like to use. Everyone remembers that Thomas Jefferson wrote the declaration of independence. Right, right. He was actually part of a five person committee named by the first continent of Congress to do so. Who are the other four members? Without going to Google? I don’t know. Right. That’s the point. One person does the job until until someone else complains. Wow, stick with one person to do this job. They can listen to anyone they want, but they don’t have to listen, they don’t have to get agreement. They move forward. So, in my view on the power of attorney, you should name. You can name your spouse if you if your spouse is not going to collapse under pressure, as I mentioned in a segment. Okay, after the SPAPS, name the person or the child who is most likely to take you in should you need long term care. After that, name the and the next successor. Is the child or person second most likely to take you in. Okay, yea. If it’s your son going to take you in, but your daughter in law is going to do the most of the work, still name. Your son is the agent. Okay, but you. I think a power of returney should be written as though it’s going to mostly be needed when you need long term care, because that’s what happens. It’s mostly used when you need long term care because you can’t handle your own affairs anymore. That and long term care really go hand in hand right. There are other times, when it’s used. But nine, nine and forty four. One hundred percent of the time it’s when people, when the principle, needs long term care, sir. So write it that way. That’s that article that I mentioned to Cleveland Bar Journal was on writing them with long term care in mind. So name your agent with long term care in mind, the persons most likely to look after you. Might they be injured in the same car accident that you need the causes you needed long term care? Sure, that’s why you have a second successor agent. Okay, but you name that person on the healthcare power of attorney or healthcare proxy or whatever it is in your state, and the general or business or whatever you call it, power attorney. Okay, don’t name your son because he handles money better, and name your daughter as your healthcare agent, because if water reaches the end of a rope, son may not agree to higher help and he controls the check book. Yeah, give the person who’s looking after most likely to look after you, okay, both the power to choose you, how your care is handled and to pay for it. It’s so true. And you know, I have to say in my family my mother had somebody else be her financial power of attorney in her hometown, because that’s where all of our bank accounts were, which made no sense to me because banking down here in Seattle. It was just stupid. But that was your choice. And so I was stuck with her care, but I had no authority to do anything. So I had all the responsibility to take care of her, but no authority. Yeah, and we had to fix that. Empower the person who is going to take on the responsibility of your care, right, right, because even if they lack a backbone. You know your daughter who’s lucky to take you in, doesn’t really stand up to her siblings, she may grow an incredible backbone when her back is against the wall because the sibling’s aren’t helping. Okay, yeah, very so please. And power the one that is likely to take you in, because if they get to the end of their rope, it hurts both them and you. Right, and power them with the healthcare power attorney and the General Power Atturney, and as far as I’m concerned, they should be. You should all the people you namage, your agent or your turning in fact, in order remember one at a time. But they can be, you know, first first, this person I’m not this person, that person, I’m not that person. Then there’s other person. Okay, that’s success, right, keep them. Keep that list. The same for the healthcare proper attorney and the General Power Attorney and for the living will. Okay, now think about living well, yeah, living wills may be different in every state. Okay, and for those who don’t know, where we’re talking about rare to top your head. This is the Terry Shi Vo, Carrin and Quinland thing. Someone who suffers a brain death and the families try to decide whether to let the body go when you turn off the respirator, or keep the respirator running. Okay, and what the choice to do a living will is usually am I willing to die if my brain is gone? Are My not willing to die? I am. Am I afraid of death and what’s on the other side of it? I think, I think that that is the decision for most people. But you can also write a living will that says keep me alive as long as the money holds out, or keep me alive until the browns on the Super Bowl, which could be forever. Okay, Hey, whatt you know? Yeah, live with live with frustration here and I mean we don’t have Russell Wilson, you know. So what can I say? Well, I don’t think Seattle did too much that the series there. So yeah, but it a hey, you got a super bowl over there? We don’t. Yeah, we’re just up there road from from Joe Borough, who’s making s’s an adulate great. So what can I say? You know, but you is. So if you want, if you say I terrified of death, you can write the living will that way. Just because you have a form of hi I was a good form. Okay. I’m hoping other states have the same sort of things. Somebody, some committee of learned people that creates a form. Okay, but high we have a good form. Is a perfect Oh heavens no, but it’s really a good start, okay. And but you can change the form. You can take the form as it is, cross everything out, but your initials there and say and then special instructions are in the margin or something. I’m afraid of death. Try to keep me alive. So here’s like another question I have. Usually I know that this earlier this year or last year. Year ago, I had surgery on my hand and when I went into the hospital they said, which was a different hospital and I never been to which was kind of weird. But they basically said, oh well, we have your your living will you know document you signed at Swedish hospitals. So obviously there’s some sort of connection. Do you want to transfer that over or do you want and I didn’t even know what they were talking about, but they had to have something because they were going to put me under. That is the rule and that’s that’s typical, because there are just weird risks with surgery. HMM. My my aunt, my my mom’s brother’s wife in for relatively route team back strergy but had a nimbolism and she never came out. And that’s the things like. You never know. And so but I was amazed that I had signed one like twenty years before, ten years before and what knows, twenty years up before, and that document was still in my archive of you know, obviously Providence Hospital in Swedish hospital are on the same network, you know, and so they can tap in and they can see, you know, these x rays and it’s kind of Nice because then they know, you know, what you’ve had and what you haven’t, you know, done. He said the era of electronic medical records. Yes, yes, but it’s a necessary evil because you the way entrances handled out, you’re not necessarily going to be at one place getting all right. Right, so after this hospital for the for a Cask and that hospital for examination, as other hospital for the actual surgery. Yeah, it just without electronic medical records, we just be lost. Okay, but in the living will, at least in Ohio, and I said practice spect most living wills of this way, because the living will doesn’t take effect until you don’t have brain act. Right. Okay, so there’s really the decision is unplug the respirator or not, and please leave people instructions on what you want. Yes, and I think on top of that is if you have a document on file, like mine was twenty years ago I had I had my ex boy friend on it, which just crazy. So obviously now that I married, I had to update it and I didn’t even realize it when I got there. That was part of my prep for surgery. I did not realize that that was an important document. Even when I came into the hospital on my all my prep, on my paperwork and all that, those things were not reviewed with me. So obviously those things need to be revisited. Yeah, yeah, but I bet your ex boyfriend was on there. Not as a decision maker because you filled out the form. That’s a decision right, okay, but as the person who would get notified, right, if you didn’t have brain activity? Okay, that’s like what? Yeah, I’m a talked to w still, but that’s part of my point. And I’m Gonta the exboyfriend thing and twenty years old, ook at that. You know that. That’s that. Everyone ought to update these things from time to time when their life situation changes. Right. But within a family, there where their strife. People who are on the living will are apt to say, Oh, I’m named a living will, I’m in charge now, I get to make the decisions. Okay. So I suggest, just because there is that mistaken belief that if you’re named on the document, you’re in charge now. Okay, name people in the living will to receive that unfortunate phone call that you’re not showing brain activity, because in the job is to tell everyone else us. Okay, name them in the power in the living will in the same order as in your powers of attorney. Spouse first, if you name your spouse first child, most likely to take you in next, child second. Must like to take you in after that and keep him in order. Then we don’t have the child who’s on the healthcare power of Atturney, which is still in effect, by the way. Living world not shut down, the power of attorney having to fight with the person named first on the living will over who’s in charge, and the hospital or whoever has to step in the middle and sort of things out. Yeah, keep them all the same. That avoids conflict at the time where conflict slows down your medical care. Right. So name everybody in the same order. Okay, I think that’s very important. And you may say, Oh, my family’s never going to fight. Yeah, good luck. I actually I can’t name names from my clients, so I use a fictional one. Okay, win. Did FREDO CORLEONE DIE? This is the brother who betrayed Michael to the the rival crime boss. When did FRADO die? After Mama died? Yep, Mama kept Mama’s presence, kept the piece it was. It was an uncomfortable piece, but kept the peace. Well, let’s say Mama Cor Leoni didn’t die, but she had Alzheimer’s. Yeah, I bet Fredo would abide. Okay, so yes, that’s fictional, but I bet you know people that way, that that the siblings don’t like each other, but the presence of the parents keeps the fight from becoming a hot war. Exactly. Don’t expect your freely be different. Wow, wow, well, this is important and obviously when you die there’s a hole. Now a brand new bunch of things that happen after you’ve passed away. And I think we’re going to go in this next two segments and we’re going to talk about wills and trusts and Jim will be right back right after this. State of Ohio residence. You have a friend to help you navigate long term care while protecting your assets. You can reach Jim at www dot protecting seniorscom or just email him at j Koewler afe. That’s j Taylor AFE at protecting Seniorscom.