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Presenting another important article by Attorney David Feakes at The Parents Estate Planning Law Firm. Protecting your children and your estate is vital, and Attorney Feakes can ensure that your family is protected. Please visit www.parentsestateplanning.com for more information.
Presenting another important article by Attorney David Feakes at The Parents Estate Planning Law Firm. Protecting your children and your estate is vital, and Attorney Feakes can ensure that your family is protected. Please visit www.parentsestateplanning.com for more information.
Before your son or daughter packs up for summer vacation or even their first semester of college, I want you to think about what it means to have a child who is an “adult” in the eyes of the law. From a legal standpoint, I can tell you that it means you’ll now need written permission to make important medical or financial decisions on his or her behalf.
For example, if your daughter is having a problem registering for fall classes because she’s missing medical records, you can no longer just reach out to her doctor to access them without explicit permission.
Even worse—imagine your child was seriously injured in an accident or became ill hundreds or even thousands of miles away from home.
If you didn’t have specific legal documentation in place that gave you permission to make important medical and lifeāsaving decisions, the hospital or doctors could easily bar you from being involved in your child’s care (and they rarely bend the rules on this either—it goes against privacy laws). So to avoid all this, I encourage parents of graduating seniors to take some time this summer and create 3 simple documents with their “adult” son or daughter. They consist of the following:
1. Advance Health Care Directive: This document allows a young adult to appoint someone they trust (the parent) to be their health care agent should they wind up in a coma or become otherwise incapacitated in a serious accident. It also specifies the type of longāterm care or life support the child would want should they become incapacitated or left in a permanent vegetative state.
2. Financial Power of Attorney: Having a financial power of attorney is necessary to give someone (preferably the parents) permission to access any bank accounts and act financially on the adult child’s behalf if an emergency occurs. Such activities covered under the power of attorney include paying bills, buying or selling assets, applying for social security or other government benefits and the opening and closing of accounts.
3. Signed HIPAA Form: Parents should have their adult child preāsign a HIPAA form to ensure they can immediately communicate with physicians and access important medical records.
Finally, for added protection, I would also create an ICE Card (In Case Of Emergency) to be kept in the child’s wallet listing the names of all approved emergency contacts, health insurance information and all known allergies.
So make it a point to create these 3 legal documents before the summer end. It’s the peace of mind you and your child deserve.
Acton-based estate planning attorney David R. Feakes is a certified Personal Family Lawyer® at The Parents Estate Planning Law Firm. David helps families talk about and plan for sensitive subjects like money, death, and taxes. David can be contacted by telephone at (978) 263-6900 or by email at david@parentsestateplanning.com. Mention this Macaroni Kid article and receive a free Family Wealth Planning Session!
