April 20, 2021
Castle Wealth Group, COVID 19 Vaccine & Long Term Care Facilities 2021, Scripps Media

Castle Wealth Group, COVID 19 Vaccine & Long Term Care Facilities 2021, Scripps Media
Estate Attorney and Advisor Chris Berry of Castle Wealth Group answers questions on retirement and estate planning every Wednesday at 1pm. Register via this link or give our office a call at 844-885-4200.
Castle Wealth Group and Christopher Berry help families with estate planning, elder law, retirement planning, and tax planning from their offices in Brighton, Ann Arbor, Livonia, Bloomfield Hills, and Novi.
Castle Wealth Group helps families with their legal, financial, and tax planning for their retirement and legacy.
With the use of legal structures like revocable living trusts, Castle Trusts (asset protection trusts), Chris Berry and Castle Wealth Group can help your family plan, protect, and preserve what is important through their Retirement and Legacy Blueprint Process.
For more info visit:
https://castlewealthlegal.com/home
https://michiganestateplanning.com/
Episode Transcript
Vaccine and Long Term Care
People in long-term care facilities remain top priority for the COVID vaccine, but it is bringing up some questions about consent.
There’s questions of capacity of whether they have capacity to consent to something like a medical procedure, like a vaccination.
Christopher Berry is a Certified Elder Law Attorney. He says pandemic are not the most important thing that people with a loved one in a care facility can do, is to establish a medical power of attorney.
This is where we appoint someone to make medical decisions. Those medical decisions could be whether to get the COVID vaccination or not. That loved one that’s appointed that power of attorney they’re really now the advocate on behalf of the person.
These legal documents allow adult children to be involved in their parents’ health and make medical decisions for them, something useful in an emergency or an urgent situation.
Maybe we include language to say whether we get permission to be on a ventilator or not or to get a COVID vaccination or not. The more specific you are, typically the better off that document is because that’s going to be your rule book that if someone gives you a hard time, you can point to where specifically it says what you’re trying to do.
He says that the documents aren’t thorough or specific enough that the family could end up being bound to state rules on the issue. Now, a medical power of attorney is one of three things that Berry believes are key for those that the loved one in a care facility. The second is a financial power of attorney who will make financial decisions on behalf of that person that is in the care facility. Now, the third is a HIPAA authorization that says who can access the person’s medical information. Berry says it costs less than $1,000 to put together all three. Now, he stresses it is important to make sure that you are working with a certified elder law attorney.