Life Care Planning Services
What Is A Certified Life Care Planner?
A Certified Life Care Planner is a licensed RN, or rehabilitation professional with a certification from The International Commission of Health Care.
What is a Life Care Plan?
The definition of a Life Care Plan: (courtesy of the International Academy of Life Care Planners, 2003)
“The life care plan is a dynamic document based upon published standards of practice, comprehensive assessment, data analysis, and research, which provides an organized, concise plan for current and future needs with associated costs for individuals who have experienced catastrophic injury or have chronic health care needs.”
In More Simple Terms…
A Life Care Planner will read all the medical records that are available. Documentation of all of those records is completed in chronological order and should read like a story of their health care. The number of pages of medical records vary for each individual, but many are 2,000-5,000 pages. (Example of a written Life Care Plan)
Within those medical record pages are a wealth of information. All the information is assessed and analyzed knowing that there is a standard of practice in medicine that should be followed.
For example: If I was looking at a medical malpractice case, I want to carefully read all of the hospital records. I analyze all the times and dates of treatment. In one particular case I created a time line of events. (Example written timeline)
The Life Care Planner will track all of the recommendations made by your providers to implement them into the plan. There are always additional ideas that may be recommended either by the professional or the life care planner that can be discussed with providers.
A Life Care Planner communicates with the individual to discuss their concerns including:
- To understand a day of their life.
- To understand the living situation and if changes are required.
For example, a person who now is in a wheelchair, but has no ramps to their home. Or a person in a wheelchair that has a top loading washing machine and cannot get the clothes out. The lists can go on and on. All of these situations need to be discussed and understood in order to be able to find out all of the individual needs of the client.
Future Medical Cost Projections (FMCP)
All the recommendations, from the service providers, are put into a form called a Future Medical Cost Projection, or FMCP with the associated costs (in current dollars) and CPT numbers (Current Procedural Terminology). Many attorneys will send these off to an economist to understand the cost over time.
To put this into perspective, the next time you hear a commercial about a person receiving large sum of money for an accident, think about what the medical needs are for that individual. Medication, treatment and possible surgeries are expensive. If I asked a person what a medication might cost, most people have no idea. I search Red Book, that has listings of all the manufacturers to understand the cost of generic versus name brand. There are some individuals that cannot take a generic due to allergies to some of the ingredients. Some companies are able to have a much lower price due to providing large quantities. I document the NDC number of the medication (this shows the specific medication), name cost per quantity, and unit dose cost. All surgical fees are documented in a range. This is due to not knowing the exact timing of the surgery. (Example FMCP)