Life Care Planning

Cost entries should be connected to identified future care needs rather than presented only as unsupported totals. Within the planner's qualifications and professional scope, cost research may address treatment, medications, equipment, supplies, therapies, attendant services, and other recommended resources. The costing methodology should use reliable and appropriately representative sources and should make it possible to understand how the selected costs correspond to the type, frequency, duration, and timing of the projected care. The care recommendations themselves also require appropriate support. Current life-care-planning standards recognize that a planner may independently recommend services within the planner's professional scope and may collaborate with other qualified professionals when recommendations extend beyond that scope. Inflation, discount rates, and present-value calculations are distinct economic issues when those adjustments are required.

Some projected needs occur once, while others recur periodically. Durable medical equipment, mobility devices, prosthetic or assistive devices, and similar resources may therefore require assumptions about useful life, maintenance, and replacement frequency. Those assumptions affect both the number of replacements included in a long-term plan and the timing of the associated costs. The timing can also matter to later economic analysis. Treating a periodic expense as an averaged annual cost can produce a different economic result from placing the full replacement cost in the years when replacement is expected. Replacement assumptions should therefore be stated clearly and supported by an identifiable source or rationale appropriate to the particular item and user.