If you did your estate planning with Pyke & Associates, we provided you with a binder to hold all your estate planning documents. You might just have your documents in a folder in a safe place at your home. Either way, along with your documents, whether in a folder or in a binder, other information [...]
Are you new to Texas? Well then, "Howdy!" Over 150,000 have joined us in our corner of the Lone Star State in the last year. Hopefully, before you moved to Texas, you had good, up-to-date estate planning. But, since estate planning laws are different from state to state, if Texas is now your residence, you [...]
Our firm mission is to take the fear and unpredictability out of probate, and the other services we provide. Despite our best efforts, the word "probate" works as a bogeyman that causes some to shake with irrational fear. The concern is that probate will significantly deplete an estate, usually by increased legal fees. First, here [...]
The trauma of a major medical crisis is compounded by a lack of advanced legal and financial planning. We can wag our heads all day about someone's failure to properly plan, but we must realistically deal with the hand that is dealt to the family of someone who has failed to plan. The key decision-making [...]
In last week’s article, we introduced the concept of utilizing Medicaid to help pay for long-term care. Medicaid is a federally-funded program to provide assistance with long-term care costs to those in need. In Texas, Medicaid is administered by the Health and Human Services Commission (“HHSC”). In this article, we will focus on the most [...]
If a person has had a medical emergency and a long-term prognosis is poor, there is probably a need for long-term care, either at home or in a facility. Although it might sound desirable for there to be homecare, it is by far the most expensive solution. If there is serious impairment, 24-hour at-home care [...]
A stroke or other sudden medical events may leave a person with severely diminished capacity, including the inability to work, but they may have enough capacity to make their medical, financial, and legal decisions. The reality may be that although they have the minimal capacity to make those decisions that they need assistance. To be [...]
As we addressed in last week's post, the healthcare crisis of a loved one involves financial, medical, and legal issues. If the immediate financial and medical issues can be resolved without court action, the most important thing is to get the patient properly assessed and determine their prognosis. If a loved one who has been [...]
When someone has a severe medical crisis, their loved ones get a crash course in the convergence of financial, medical and legal issues. In this six-part series, our weekly newsletter will focus on the step-by-step process to deal with these emergency issues. First is the immediate assessment and prognosis. If the health event is serious [...]
On January 31, 2020, the Federal Government declared a public health emergency (PHE) in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. In March 2020, Congress passed implemented a Medicaid continuous coverage requirement as part of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA). In exchange for an increase in federal Medicaid matching funds, states were required to keep [...]