Your Baby is an Adult: That Means Something This September
It’s that time again – time to start thinking about kids heading back to school. In some cases, the children are heading “off” to school for the first time. Most parents don’t realize that when their children turn age 18, they are now legal adults. They still may not clean their rooms, or quite know how to get the dishes into the dishwasher, but guess what. . . they are still legally protected by privacy laws.
Most parents are so used to setting up doctor’s appointments, or cashing a paycheck for their child, that they are shocked the first time the hear, “I’m sorry Mrs. Smith. Little Billy is 18 now. I can’t do that for you anymore.”
Now imagine Billy is off to college and you get that dreaded phone call: “Mom, I’m all out of pizza money and there’s a problem with my bank account. Can you fix it?” Well, no. No you can’t fix it.
The same goes for health care decisions. Once 18, doctors are legally prohibited from sharing medical information with parents. So if that truly dreaded call comes from college, you’ll be unable to get any information from doctors or hospitals until you can get there, and have Billy give that permission, assuming of course he’s capable of doing so. Trust me, you don’t even want to contemplate the horrendous scenarios of legal red tape if he’s not capable.
The solution is to avoid all this by having Billy execute three simple documents that every adult should have: Durable Power of Attorney, Health Care Proxy and an Authorization to Release Medical Information. These can be done quickly, simply and inexpensively. As a matter of fact, for clients in our ongoing services plans they are FREE! For everyone else they are only $750 (a $200 discount for back to school season.)
Don’t let your baby go off to school unprotected. Have the peace of mind of know that whatever calls you get, you’ll be able to get information and take the steps you need to take.
Tags: Children
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