Reduced Fees on Easate Planning to Anyone Dealing With Breast Cancer

Welcome back. You know, a breast cancer diagnosis can bring a lot of questions beyond treatment, including what could it mean for your job, health insurance, and finances. Fortunately, this morning, we have attorney Danielle Mayores here. She's going to talk us through some of the legal steps that people may want to consider and how estate planning can help. You know, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Is this a different angle than most people see? They're not really thinking, what should I do with my job or my future? Tell us what. I think the first thing people think about is the medical issues, but the medical issues spill into other issues. Can spill into the job, making sure that you have flexibility at work, which you're entitled to under the laws. If you need to take time off for your recovery, that's something else that you can ask for and the laws allow. So these are all interconnected. I think that most people aren't aware that they do have things at work that can help them through this time. legal protections are in place to assist someone with breast cancer in the workplace specifically what what should you look for most folks don't even maybe know they have like you said they're looking oh am i medically covered but what about your end of it yes so as far as my end of it i do estate planning with people and it's very important for someone who has a diagnosis to make sure that they can focus on the medical issues in their recovery and in order to do that ideally we want them to have a couple legal documents in place like a medical durable power of attorney so that if their loved one that they appoint needs to talk to doctors or access medical records they can do that without having to get a guardianship in the probate court we also have a financial power of attorney which is really critical so you can have someone pay your bills and handle your investments and once again you can expend your energy where it's most needed on your medical issues and on your recovery. these are important and valid topics I even find that, and I'm a caretaker for my mom She's not necessarily ill or anything but it's important to have those legal documents in place so that you can speak for them and say hey, I can handle their finances Hey, I'm helping with their guardianship as well So these legal protections are definitely something that we need to take advantage of. What legal steps should be taken after a diagnosis comes to legal and financial planning? Well, I think the first step is if you already have that planning in place, which hopefully, you know, as an estate planning attorney, I always hope people do So if you have it in place, get it reviewed, make sure it's up to date. If you don't have it in place, meet with an attorney who specializes in estate planning We want to have that financial power of attorney and medical power of attorney that we discussed. But also if you have children, make sure you have an appointment a guardian in place make sure that you have a will or trust in place and so we want people when you have a diagnosis whether it's breast cancer or another illness a lot of times you don't feel empowered by doing this planning you can actually empower yourself because then you have control over all your decisions even if you're not making them yourself you're appointing someone to do it for you You know when you get a I'm assuming when you get a cancer diagnosis or breast cancer diagnosis at all you're just overwhelmed How soon do people either the family or the women come in to see you and do you wish that it were sooner? Is this something that we should think of putting in place even if we're not diagnosed with the cancer? Yes absolutely and I'm so glad you brought that up. So many times when we talk about estate planning people wait for the illness or the crisis or a nursing home issue you name it we actually want people to think about these things and get the documents in place before the diagnosis and before the crisis and also maybe young people are thinking this is an older people problem but in reality if someone begins to protect themselves earlier they're better because breast cancer diagnosis can come at any time absolutely everyone over the age of 18 should ideally get these documents in place and i have three kids in their 20s and when they turned 18 they had their documents ready for them to sign because as a parent i don't want to have to go through the probate court to help my children make their medical and financial decisions and how detailed and time consuming is it for someone to get these documents in place is this is this an online thing is this a thing that we need to do with your law firm because you know there's forms for everything online yes i appreciate you bringing that up. I hear online and I get a little jarred because it's not a one size fits all when we do this. And a lot of people don't realize that there's not like forms that every attorney uses across the state of Michigan. We actually all customize our own documents. And so a lot of items that clients may need in there or may not realize that they need in there at the time. And your firm is offering reduced fees for estate planning right now. We have information on the screen yes yes we want to encourage everyone especially those who have been diagnosed with cancer breast cancer or survivors we're offering a discount on our estate planning services through the end of the year to really encourage everyone to get this in place and give back to the community well we thank you so much for coming in today attorney thank you so much very valuable information so we will be posting that information that has a link on our website at box to Detroit.com. We'll be right back.