We do love it when someone refers a family member or friend to us. Sometimes the question is, “How can we introduce them to you?” Well, there are multiple ways but a very easy way is to simply forward them a link to this webpage.
Here are this week’s items:
Portfolio Update: Murs and I have recorded our portfolio update for December 4, 2023
Anne Rhodes – Estate Planning in Retirement – Simplified
Listen in to learn about the importance of documents like the HIPAA form, certification of trust, and why you should consider a trust versus a will. You will also learn how wealth.com is set up to reduce estate planning friction and simplify estate planning for financial advisors and their clients.
Estate planning is a topic we often discuss with our clients. If you’re in the middle of retirement planning and trying to secure your retirement, an estate plan is something you want on your “to-do” list. Anne Rhodes, the Chief Legal Officer of wealth.com, joined us on our latest podcast, where she provides a simplified rundown of estate planning for our audience.
Estate planning is a topic we often discuss with our clients. If you’re in the middle of retirement planning and trying to secure your retirement, an estate plan is something you want on your “to-do” list.
Anne Rhodes, the Chief Legal Officer of wealth.com, joined us on our latest podcast, where she provides a simplified rundown of estate planning for our audience.
What Core Documents Make Up an Estate Plan?
Everyone – no matter the size of the estate – can break their estate plan into two large buckets.
Bucket 1: Passing Away and Death: Who will step into your shoes? Who will help distribute these assets? Where are these assets going?
Bucket 2: Incapacity: Incapacitation remains a serious question because if you’re no longer able to make decisions on your own, you can assign someone you trust to assist you in this area.
Documents in a standard estate package should include a will, even if you have a living trust. Both a will and a living trust are key components of an estate plan. Even if you have a living trust, you’ll need a pour-over will.
A pour-over will is what initiates your asset transfer into a living trust at the time of your death if they’re not already in the trust.
You have a whole other set of documents that you need to think about with incapacitation:
Financial Power of Attorney: A financial document that allows someone to have signature authority over your matters for any financial documents that you must sign.
Advanced Healthcare Directive: This document may be called something else, such as a healthcare proxy or healthcare power of attorney.
HIPAA Form Purpose
A HIPAA document is a great example of a healthcare directive. When it comes to medical privacy, your agent acting on your behalf with an advanced healthcare directive does not have the power to access your private medical records unless the HIPAA is signed.
If your doctor does not have a HIPAA release on file, they cannot share pertinent information with the person that you want to make medical decisions on your behalf.
As you can imagine, if the person handling your healthcare decisions cannot access your medical information, they cannot make the best decisions for you.
Certificate of Trust
A certification of trust, also known as a certificate of trust, accompanies a living trust. This certification accompanies a living or revocable trust. What this certification of trust does is allow your bank to know that:
Your trust exists
You’re the trustee
The trust is 100% legitimate
A certificate of trust is very important for streamlining your trust and ensuring that there are no issues along the way.
Trust vs. a Will
A living trust and revocable trust are the two most common forms of a trust because they’re a substitute for a will.
If you die without a will, your estate will go through a process called “probate.” Even if you have a will, your estate may still go through probate. A judge will be assigned during probate and must sign off on asset transfers. As you can imagine, involving a judge in every decision can take a while – especially in some states.
Court systems are handling a lot of cases, and if you’re in one of these states, a trust can help you avoid probate.
Probate also goes through the public system, which allows anyone to dig in and find information on what transpired during the probate process. In terms of privacy, you can keep much of your estate planning private with the help of a trust.
You may also have a trust because:
You own multiple properties across many states
You want to avoid probate in each state where you own property
If you secure your retirement and want to keep your estate out of probate, a trust is one of the best ways to achieve this goal.
Attorney Estate Planning vs Wealth.com (or similar platforms)
Digital platforms allow us to offer a simplified process of estate planning to our clients. Some clients are unsure if using an online platform like wealth.com is the same as working with an estate planner.
Wealth.com provides access to financial planners and similar professionals, streamlining the way that people create an estate plan.
Most people in the US can use wealth.com and go through the entire estate plan on their own. You must fill in forms online, which can speed up the process to make it much faster than working with a lawyer one-on-one.
Anne’s company, wealth.com, has had 70+ platform reviews from legal professionals, ensuring everything is accurate.
You can create a trust in 36 minutes with a platform like wealth.com, breaking down barriers that exist with meeting with a lawyer.
Can all families be helped with an online platform like wealth.com?
No. There are special case examples where we cannot serve certain families well, such as special needs children. Wealth.com is undergoing a survey to better help these clients. If, during the onboarding process, you answer that you have one of these situations, you will be prompted to find someone who specializes in these areas.
Do online platforms offer any personal help?
You may have one-off questions that you need answered when forming a trust, creating a will, and so on. Many platforms will not provide direct assistance in this area, but they may have an attorney network who will be available to you.
Wealth.com vs other platforms
We’ve seen many legal platforms that attempt to help in numerous areas of law, and this is where things can kind of get messy. Wealth.com focuses on estate planning only and has built a team that can help in complex estate matters, whereas many do-it-all platforms cannot.
Since you must connect with financial advisors to use the platform, you also receive additional help you wouldn’t otherwise.
Note: You need to work with a professional advisor, like Peace of Mind Wealth, who grants you access to Wealth.com and can walk you through the process. If you just go to the website, you won’t be able to access the wealth of tools available.
Once you’ve filled out all the estate planning documents, printed them out and notarized them as needed, your estate plan is in place.
If you’re interested in financial planning and want to add an estate plan into the mix, feel free to reach out to us.
We do love it when someone refers a family member or friend to us. Sometimes the question is, “How can we introduce them to you?” Well, there are multiple ways but a very easy way is to simply forward them a link to this webpage.
Here are this week’s items:
Portfolio Update: Murs and I have recorded our portfolio update for May 15, 2023
This Week’s Podcast -Why do You Need a HIPAA Authorization?
Listen in to learn how your HIPAA Authorization can connect with your living will or health care power of attorney for information to be shared. You will also learn about the medical information that can be released to an authorized person per HIPAA standards.
This Week’s Blog – Why do You Need a HIPAA Authorization?
Estate plan packages are something we advise all of our clients to think about, and it often starts with a discussion of a will, power of attorney, and if the person needs a trust. However, there’s one element that should never be overlooked: HIPAA authorization forms.
Estate plan packages are something we advise all of our clients to think about, and it often starts with a discussion of a will, power of attorney, and if the person needs a trust. However, there’s one element that should never be overlooked: HIPAA authorization forms.
As part of your retirement planning, you must think about the future and what will happen to you if there’s a medical emergency in your life.
What is a HIPAA Form and What Does It Stand For?
When you’re in a doctor’s or dentist’s office, it’s not uncommon to come across a HIPAA form. You’ll need to sign one of these forms, and it’s not always 100% clear as to what you’re signing.
HIPAA is short for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, and it transformed healthcare. A few things to know are:
The HIPAA law protects your information so that all medical issues are kept between you and the doctor
A HIPAA form allows for the release of the information to certain parties, such as a spouse or children
Many people assume that if they’re in the hospital, the hospital will have to call and inform somebody. Unfortunately, this is not accurate and that is why we recommend filling out a HIPAA authorization form.
What is a HIPAA Authorization?
There are two different types of HIPAA authorization forms. The first is when you’re switching health insurance providers and need to release your medical information from one provider to the next.
However, we’re going to be discussing the second type of authorization.
The second type of authorization prevents your doctor from divulging information about your medical condition to someone else. You may incorrectly assume that if you’re in the hospital, you can talk to your doctor and your doctor will be able to release your medical information to specific loved ones.
You can connect your Estate Plan and your HIPAA forms. If you cannot communicate and someone needs to carry out your wishes as outlined in your estate plan, they’ll likely need medical information from your doctor. Asking someone to carry out your wishes will place a huge burden on them, and you don’t want them to be unable to obtain information on your current medical condition and prognosis.
Connecting your HIPAA forms to an estate plan can resolve this problem.
Example of Why HIPAA Forms Are Important
In the last year, we’ve had a few “reminders” of why filling out these forms is crucial in 2023. We had one couple who was fine one day and then the next, the husband had a massive stroke. He could not communicate or make any facial movements.
The doctors stated that the person had the mental capacity to communicate their wishes, but they were unable to physically communicate.
The wife was left with the burden of communicating with the doctors about what she thought her husband’s wishes were. She had to guess what her husband’s wishes were because he didn’t have any of the appropriate documents in place that stated his desires.
A healthcare power of attorney allows you to list one or more people to make medical decisions. The person in our example has adult children, and the wife was extremely stressed out in this situation.
A power of attorney, living will and HIPAA form that are all connected would have allowed the husband’s information to be shared with the wife and children. Her children could have taken on some of the burden of making decisions if all of these documents were connected.
I have another example of my own. I was talking to an estate planning attorney and had a son who was turning 18 at the time. My attorney reminded me that once my son reached adulthood, I would only receive limited information from doctors.
If my son had been in a medical emergency, the hospital would not have been able to share certain medical information with me.
My attorney advised me to have my son sign a HIPAA form that authorizes my wife and I to speak with doctors and have them release information to us on his medical condition. We also have a daughter who will be turning 18 shortly and will need her to sign a HIPAA form as well.
Imagine being a parent and not having the ability to speak to the doctors about your child’s medical condition. It’s a scary prospect that also applies to your parents, spouse or anyone who would want you to know about their medical condition.
What Information is Shared When a HIPAA Authorization Form is Signed?
HIPAA forms authorize medical professionals to give your medical information to those listed on the form. The person listed on the form also has a right to request any information from the medical professional.
Is every piece of information shared?
No.
Social Security numbers, dates of birth and other sensitive information are protected. Medical professionals must also act within the HIPAA standard of minimum necessary. These professionals only need to provide you with the bare minimum of information.
Medical professionals do not need to go through all of your medical history. Instead, they need to provide you with enough information to make a decision on the person’s health.
On the HIPAA authorization, there is no need for a notary or witness. You only need to have the person’s signature and the name of the people they are authorizing information to be released to in the event they’re in the hospital.
The form requires:
Signature
Date
How you want the form to be used
Names of who you want to access your information
Form timeframe (length of authorization)
Ability to revoke authorization
On the HIPAA form, you just state your medical wishes and who will receive information on your behalf. These forms authorize the individual to receive just the minimum info necessary to make a medical decision if you are unable to make it yourself.
If you name someone who you decide you no longer want on the form, you can revoke the authorization, too.
We truly believe everyone needs a HIPPA form.
Anyone who wants to sign HIPAA forms can contact us and we’ll walk you through the process. We do not charge for this. You can also consult with your estate planning attorney to have them fill out these forms with you.
