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[Music]
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special needs planning is one of the
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most rewarding areas of our practice
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it’s basically a subset of estate
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planning because it is a type of estate
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planning
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and it’s a type of estate planning that
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we do to help families who have a member
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that has special needs and may need
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special benefits in the future
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and the case that i’m thinking of that’s
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memorable to me is a family who had
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a an adult child he was a young man
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early 20s
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he had cerebral palsy and he was
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quadriplegic completely non-verbal so
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entirely dependent on his family
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and on medical care and amazingly to me
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i had never seen this before
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one of the medications he needed
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required a pump
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because he was completely unable to
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swallow pills or even swallow liquid
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medicine
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medicine had to be pumped in and this
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particular pump had to be filled with a
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liquid medicine
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that cost six thousand dollars a month
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to fill
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and there’s a medicaid benefit that
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would help with that but medicaid
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benefits require special
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eligibility requirements and this
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particular person
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had a medical malpractice settlement
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because a doctor had made some mistakes
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and the insurance company wound up
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paying some money it was a significant
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amount of money to help care for this
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person but it was not enough to care for
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the person for the rest of his life
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so we were able to take that money put
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it into a special needs trust so that he
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got the benefit of it
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but also making it so that it didn’t
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count as an asset for medicaid
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eligibility purposes
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so we could still get the help on a
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monthly basis paying for that
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six thousand dollar per month for the
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rest of his life
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medication and that doesn’t even count
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all the other medications and nursing
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help that he needed
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so it was particularly memorable to me
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because it made a huge difference when i
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was able to look that family in the eye
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across the table and say
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i’ve got a solution we can make this
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work we can make sure that your son
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always has the medicine that he needs
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the relief that washed over their face
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was just amazing and it made me feel
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really good about
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being able to help a family that truly
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needed it