How to Create an Elder Care Plan Before a Crisis
5.21.2026
It’s 3 a.m., the phone rings and your aging parent is headed to the hospital after taking a fall. You rush to the Emergency Department. Over the next days and weeks, you are overwhelmed by new decisions to make ranging from health care directives to nursing care placement.
A recent program, “How to Create an Elder Care Plan Before a Crisis” is the first of a three-part series called “Helping the Helpers” sponsored by New York State Bar Association’s Committee on Attorney Well-Being.
The first program focused on practical planning in caring for aging parents or other family members with chronic illnesses.
The webinar was facilitated by Emma Soy of Gentle Shepherd, an organization that helps families plan and navigate the aging process. Soy uses her nursing experience to help families handle the changes that come with aging including legal, medical, housing and caretaking needs. She says many families will have a plan for a funeral, but not a plan on how to navigate advanced age.
Soy shared a statistic that 53 million Americans are unpaid caregivers to older adults. These caregivers juggle full-time work and their own family’s needs while caring for a parent or an ailing loved one. If parents are in their 90s, often their sons and daughters have their own health care needs to consider. The burden of such care is shown in financial and emotional stress.
“Caregivers are spending, on average, 26 hours a week as a caretaker with more than half of caregivers admitting to reducing their work hours to care for a family member. Many leave their jobs entirely,” she said. “On top of that, the average family caregiver spends about $7,200 a year out-of-pocket as part of that work.”
Soy says the cost of caregiver burnout affects not only income but can impact your relationship with your siblings and other family members. Adult children often find themselves unprepared to make healthcare and housing decisions for parents in a crisis. Soy says that is when the elder plan comes into play.
Steps to Create an elder plan
“The best time to build a plan is when your family doesn’t need one yet,” advises Soy.
If your loved one has a diagnosis of heart disease, cancer or a minor fall, Soy says this is the time to start an elder plan. Other appropriate events such as a milestone birthday or following a retirement celebration are good times to broach the topic.
An elder plan contains five pillars: legal, medical, financial, housing and caretaking. Soy said most attorneys will be familiar with legal documents such as advanced directives and living wills. In addition to an attorney, a financial planner and a nurse or care coordinator round out the group of advisers on the plan. With medical and financial matters, one family member or representative should be selected as the point of contact for the elder plan who will make decisions for the patient.
A nurse or care coordinator reviews all physicians and specialists for the aging parent including a full list of medications. The coordinator can be an advocate for the patient while also managing medications.
“The more medication that an older adult has, the greater the fall risk and likelihood of readmission to the hospital,” said Soy. “One fall for an older adult can change everything. That is one of the reasons why you need the medical team member in your elder plan.”
Soy acknowledges that some older adults are reluctant to talk to their children about finances and living conditions. This is crucial, she says, so that caregivers have the full picture of what resources are available for caretaking. Discussing a parent’s wishes for aging at home or investigating nearby assisted living and skilled nursing facilities is best done before you need them.
Soy also advises families to review long-term care insurance policies, understanding that some benefits can be used for daily living assistance.
“When you have two or three activities of daily living that you need assistance with, that is when you need to activate long term care insurance,” advises Soy. “Home health care costs $35 an hour with a four-hour minimum. People need to be prepared for this.”
Lastly, whether you use a care planner such as Gentle Shepard or create your own support system for an aging loved one, Soy reminds caregivers to look for the helpers.
“Many carry the weight of decisions [for a loved one] all alone. When you have others, they can help you carry the load. You don’t have to do this by yourself.”
