Friday, October 01, 2004

COPY, FILE & SAVE

Whether ‘living with MS’ in your family or caregiving in general documentation is sooo critical. It's never too early, or too late, to start taking time to organize, file, and save medical and financial records for yourself or some one else you perceive you may need to help in the future. 

 

The NEED for those papers will usually come under stressful situations. Their accessibility and ease to grasp for others is essential.

 

Remove the clutter, compile when possible, make over view notes, and sort with simplicity in mind! K.I.S.S. (keep it simple, stupid) theory of organization must be followed. <grin> This is an ongoing project. You cannot do it in a day; but begin to commit regular time.

 

A disabling chronic illness or simply age may be accompanied with progressing memory problems or mental confusion. Nearly insignificantly mild at first it can progress. The simple act of organization is good mental exercise.

 

I’ve scanned all vital legal records such as birth certificates, social security cards, marriage license, power of attorney, etc into PC and copied onto CD. (I’m still paranoid and do not store such data on hard drive, just discs or CDs). CDs and discs neatly pack into a small fire proof box while paper originals live in a safety deposit box at the bank

 

You have no idea how many times simply being able to quickly fax out a copy of a document has expedited some process. Stored on a CD, I simply pop into PC and fax it off.

 

Bottom line in all this is that the paper trail must exist. At some point it becomes the ONLY truth. Recall is neither dependable nor ‘legal’. The sooner you start - the simpler you make it - the easier it becomes for everyone - now and in the future.

 

Control the paper NOW and you enable more time for the human aspects of caregiving in the future.

2 comments:

  1. Excellent advice!!!!  Most folks don't realize how important this information can be and how quickly you might have to get the information to someone.  You can never be too organized.

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  2. Amen to that Patrick. I am not the most organized person in the world but I am beginning to understand how very important it is to have all legal documents in a safe-deposit box.  We were over to visit Patti yesterday and found her to be very aware....some days are much better than others. She helped me win yet another "Trivial Pursuit" game.

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