At Caregiver Haven, we talk about the 4 areas of caregiving.
Today we are going to focus on the 31 Legal & Financial Documents (below) that you need. There are so many documents every caregiver needs to keep close. In case of an emergency, this checklist is just the tip of the iceberg, but it’s a start.
In this day and age, everything seems to be “legal”.
I remember a time when it wasn’t…
When I was a little girl about 5 or 6, I would go with my Dad, a family practice doctor when he made house calls.
I always remember going to this one house. It had a beautiful wrap-around porch and so many rocking chairs. It was in upstate New York.
Old people sat outside in the rocking chairs.
I would have to sit with them and wait for Dad while he looked in on a patient.
They would laugh, tell jokes, speak weird languages, or read books.
I just sat their on the stairs scared.
The lady who ran the home would often invite me back to the kitchen where she had cookies or pie waiting for me. Yum-yum.
After Dad was done seeing his patient, he would come into the kitchen and also eat something.
When we got back in the car, he would say, “Don’t tell your mother I ate sweets.”
I never knew why he said that, but I never told.
Anyway, these homes were called “rest homes”.
No one had any legal papers. No one cared who came and went.
Everyone enjoyed good home cooking and the warmth of a conversation.
All the families who had loved ones there knew each other.
The NEW Rest Home
Well, here we are today.
More and more paperwork than ever before.
Rest homes have been replaced with facilities.
Conversation has been replaced with an “activities list”.
No less than 31 people a week needed to care for one senior.
Time has disappeared as more and more duties on piled on to the front line workers.
And to make matters harder, there is the legal paperwork…
The legal jumbo-mumbo solved.
Here is your list of 31 documents you must have in order to:
1) Give you peace-of-mind (because you have them).
2) Give to the ability to take care of your loved one in any facility or event.
So, grab your checklist here.
31 Legal & Financial Documents Checklist
Make sure you have the proper ID numbers and proof that you can speak for your loved ones.
How many times have I seen someone not have the authority to help another individual because “they didn’t have the proper papers”?