Patient Planning
At Yeske Buie, we approach financial planning in a big-picture, holistic way. No matter what stage of life you find yourself – just starting out, entering mid-life, nearing or enjoying retirement – we feel that it is important to have a plan in place that covers all aspects of your life and is congruent with your Live Big® goals. Some of your planning needs may be obvious, but there may be some needs that simply aren’t as clear. We aim to share posts that detail an array of topics including planning topics that you may otherwise overlook: Estate Planning For Digital Assets, Financial Literacy for Youth, Financial Planning Wonk: All beneficiary designations are the same, right?, Tapping Into the Equity of Your Home, and The Transfer of Trillions, just to name a few.
With this in mind, we share an article by Julie Kaplan, PharmD, senior medical writer at RX411.com, discussing the importance of planning for unexpected medical situations. Many individuals establish advance directives and power-of-attorneys which designate one person authority to make decisions on your behalf should you be unable to do so yourself. But what if you are being rushed into an emergency room or don’t have one of these directives in place? The article explains that while your default caregiver may be a spouse or close relative, that individual may not know enough about your routine medication doses or frequency, specific allergies, or other medical conditions.
As such, the article proposes that everyone have a designated Patient Advocate; someone who is familiar with your current medications, allergies, and past surgeries, and keeps an up-to-date list of this information in case of an emergency. As the author writes, “It can be difficult to trust your medical information with another person, especially if you lead a very private life, but it’s better to have someone advocating for you during a medical crisis than going it alone.”
We agree with this encouragement and find this piece to be very relevant to the kinds of conversations we often have with our Clients.