Life Care Plans
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Life Care Plans are formal trans-disciplinary documents that serve to communicate the specific future projected needs, services and costs required by the onset of a disability to an individual.
The objective of a Life Care Plan is to help a patient achieve optimal functioning by developing a plan designed to reduce the likelihood of future medical and psychological complications as a patient ages.
All Life Care planning recommendations are based upon relevant research and current standards of medical, psychological and pharmacological practice applied to the needs of the individual patient.
Why is a Life Care Plan important?
Patients, their families and caregivers are better prepared to make responsible, essential life decisions regarding the future needs of the disabled person if they have a formal Life Care Plan to guide them. If litigation is involved, a Life Care Plan can assist attorneys and jurors in understanding the anticipated lifetime future needs (and associated costs) of the injured person.
Life Care Planning utilizes a multi-disciplinary health care team approach including physicians, nurses, psychologists and vocational experts. Information garnered from various sources (e.g. patient, patient's family, treating or consulting physicians, nurse case manager, etc.) ultimately provides needs-based recommendations.
The average Life Care plan requires 30-40 hours of work. The plan usually begins with a thorough review of all available records, followed by an in-depth interview of the patient and family. Consultation with the trans-disciplinary treatment team members aides in outlining the preliminary Life Care plan. Next, adding needed specialists, costing out the future treatments, medications, supplies, and evaluations prepares the plan for completion. Finally, reviewing and confirming the plan specifics with the patient, family and treatment specialists allows the plan to be completed and distributed to all appropriate parties (e.g. patient, treating specialists, economist, attorney if there is one, case manager, insurance adjuster and others).