When families visit a Life Care Planning Law Firm, they’re often surprised to learn that the staff includes non-legal professionals. One of the most important non-legal roles belongs to elder care coordinators, the compassionate professionals who serve as a family’s guide during the long-term care journey.

Attorneys are trained to be a client’s legal advocate, but they aren’t trained to deal with care issues. Most of the clients who find their way to Life Care Planning Law Firms have problems that extend beyond the four corners of a legal document. Elder care coordinators help families respond with confidence to these problems.

An elder care coordinator’s work begins as soon as a family decides to engage the firm. The first step is an assessment of the elder’s current situation. The elder care coordinator goes to the older adult’s home—wherever that may be—to see whether his or her living environment is safe, to assess his or her capacity, and to evaluate the family’s ability to provide the needed support.

Elder care coordinators are involved in every step of a family’s long-term care journey. The information from the home assessment visit helps determine what kind of care is needed, what options exist, and how the family might pay for those options. After the initial legal and care issues are settled, the elder care coordinator is there to help the family deal with any problem that may arise, and to provide guidance when decisions have to be made about any aspect of care or housing.

Families who have a Life Care Plan can bring any question to their elder care coordinator. For instance, when a nursing home schedules a care conference, caregivers often don’t know what questions to ask. Elder care coordinators might go to the meeting with them, provide moral support, and show them how to be an advocate for their elderly loved ones.

Having access to an elder care coordinator as part of a Life Care Plan gives family caregivers a powerful ally when things go wrong. Knowing who to call is half the battle. When there’s a legal issue or a problem with Medicaid, you call the attorneys. When there’s a problem involving a care-related issue, that’s when you call the elder care coordinators. No matter what’s going on, they have probably seen it before, and if they haven’t, they know whom to call.

Ongoing support from an elder care coordinator is the part of the Life Care Plan that many families come to appreciate the most. Find a Life Care Planning Law Firm near you.

Learn more about the elder care coordinator role and how it benefits older adults with a Life Care Plan by watching this short video.