Monthly advice on how to write your child's Letter of Intent,
also known as a Life Plan
This issue of the Life Planners newsletter is the start of a five-month series on medical considerations. This month we will discuss the big picture and we'll show you the entire medical segment of a table of contents from an actual Letter of Intent.
If you haven't gotten started yet with including medical information in your Letter of Intent, this is the month to warm up to the idea, and to start organizing your paperwork a bit. Maybe you could begin to sketch out what would appear in your table of contents, should you decide to have a table of contents in your Letter of Intent. The sample included is taken from a MS Word file, which had the table of contents built automatically as part of the building of the file.
But even if you think you won't have a table of contents in your Life Plan, you could still sketch one out, as a way of organizing your thoughts.
Hyberbaric treatments, tube feedings, seizure history, meds adjustments, growth hormone shots, hippo therapy, dual diagnoses, MRI's, doctor lists, doctors to avoid, insurance instructions, dental concerns, birth history, immunization philosophy, vision, self-care, special instructions for nail-clipping. The possibilities are endless and are unique to your child.
The purpose of writing a Life Plan, also known as a Letter of Intent, is to write down in one place everything you'd like a caregiver to know, in the event that you become unable to care for your child. But when it comes to medical information, doesn't this seem impossibly overwhelming?
Overwhelming, yes. But impossible? No. Just slow. And there's good news, too. Much of this important information is already written somewhere, and if that somewhere is stable and reliable, such as your doctor's office, you don't have to duplicate all the details. Instead, just be explicit in your Letter of Intent about where that information can be found.
Alternatively, you can make photocopies of the already existing information, and include it in the printed version of your Letter of Intent. Include dates, which office, and any other information that will make it easier for your doctor's administrative staff to find the information for your caregiver.
So let's get started at dividing up the work into chunks. This month, we'll look at the bigger picture. What is the scope of information to be included? You can start to think or write down the kinds of larger topics you'll want included in your child's Life Plan. In subsequent months, we'll focus in on one category at a time. You might consider working on your Letter of Intent entries in tandem with these newsletters.
Your Letter of Intent will probably have more than one section about medical topics. This sample has four. It was built as an MS Word file but don't forget—you can write your Letter of Intent in any form you like. Methods range from hand-written in a looseleaf binder, to videotape.
Notice a few things about these table of contents entries.
It may be important for your child's caregiver to know the history of treatments you've tried. You could, if you like, incorporate this information into your Letter of Intent by creating a fifth category.
For example, if your child has tried many different medications over time for ADHD or has had many dosage adjustments, you could keep a history of all the changes to their ADHD meds so that your caregiver doesn't have to start from scratch.
You could even keep a history of doctors you've tried! Whatever you need to say that will prevent your caregiver from re-inventing the wheel (and spare your child duress) is fair game for a history category.
Alternatively, you could discuss this history as the topic comes up in the Letter of Intent, without creating a separate category.
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Last Modified: Wednesday, 06-Feb-2008 07:23:02 PST Betterway Press
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