Medicaid Planning and Asset Protection in PA, NJ, DE, MD

Medicaid Asset protection for Seniors

Don't Go Broke Paying for Nursing Care

One of the greatest fears of older Americans is that they may end up in a nursing home. This not only means a great loss of personal freedom, but also a tremendous financial cost. Regardless of what you've heard, it's never too late to protect your assets.

Nursing Homes Costs in Pennsylvania, New jersey and Delaware average More Than $120,000 per Year

What's the Answer?
Medicaid Planning and Asset Protection

What is Medicaid Planning?
Medicaid planning is the process of protecting your hard earned assets from the growing cost of Long Term Care. More than 70% of Americans over the age of 65 will need Long Term Care Services. Many nursing home residents end up exhausting their savings and assets on long-term care costs leaving their family with nothing but a huge bill for the nursing care that was provided. Medicaid Planning will avoid losing your hard earned savings and assets.

With Proper Planning Techniques, We Can Show You:

How you can qualify for Medicaid benefits even if you have savings, a home and other assets.
What you'll need to know if family members are providing care for a loved one.
How a married couple can keep all of their savings and their home if one spouse must enter a nursing home.
How the spouse in the nursing home can pass their income to their wife or husband.
How a single individual can protect their assets and their home [many people believe that asset protection is for married couples only, we'll show you how that's not true].

There are generally 2 categories of Medicaid Planning, "Pre-Planning" and "Crisis Planning".

Pre-Planning:
Medicaid has what is known as a "look back period". What that means is, they will audit an applicants financial history for the previous 60 month period from the date of the Medicaid application [or date of continuous facility stay] . If there are any financial transactions that have taken place [outside of the allowable guidelines] they will impose a "penalty" [a period of ineligibility]. Pre Planning takes place when an individual begins financially planning 60 months or more prior to needing nursing home care. Pre Planning allows for a greater number of options in strategies to be used in order to preserve the maximum amount of savings and assets, a very popular tool is our Medicaid Trust which will protect your assets. Pre planning will also make applying for Medicaid much easier because upon the need to nursing home care you will already know that meeting the guidelines will not be difficult and will not result in a loss of savings or assets.

"Crisis" Planning:
Crisis Planning is our specialty, this type of planning occurs when an individual is either in or will be entering a nursing home within the next few months. This is a critical moment, it is absolutely imperative that you contact us as soon as possible to preserve the greatest amount of your assets as possible. While "crisis" planning does limit the number of strategies available for asset preservation, there are still strategies known to us that will generally allow us to preserve 100% of a couples assets.

What We Can Do for You:

Protect your Home - Medicaid applicants do not have to sell their homes in order to qualify for Medicaid. A spouse can remain in the home indefinitely and In "crisis" planning, we can show you how a single individual can protect their home for 6-12 months after entering a nursing home [in certain circumstances indefinitely] . With pre-planning we can show you how to protect the home and keep it in the family for both individuals and spouses. Properly protecting your home may avoid the estate recovery.
Protect your retirement funds and investment accounts - Some states differ but generally, the retirement accounts that you and your spouse have will be considered a "countable resource" when applying for Medicaid. and therefore, will have to be protected and preserved for you and your family.
Protect your life Insurance - if you and/or your spouse has life insurance, if left unprotected, you may be required to liquidate the policy and possibly use the proceeds from the cash value in the "spend down process". Medicaid only allows a cash value of $1,500 or less in a whole life policy, term policies are exempt because they do not build cash value. Properly protecting your policies will allow you retain your death benefit for your family.
Protect your income - The income of the healthy spouse at home [known as the"community spouse"] will continue undisturbed; he or she will not have to use his or her income to support the spouse receiving Medicaid benefits. If most of the couple’s income is in the name of the spouse in the nursing home and the community spouse’s income is not enough to live on, the community spouse may be entitled to some or all of the income of the institutionalized spouse.
QIT or Miller Trust - some states are known as "income cap" states for the purpose of Medicaid benefits. Meaning they impose a "cap" on the income that a person can earn each month in order to qualify for Medicaid benefits. So, for those who's gross monthly income is above the state's limit they must establish what is known as a Qualified Income Trust [QIT] or also known as a "Miller Trust". When properly drafted and managed a QIT will allow this individual to qualify for Medicaid benefits. Our experienced attorneys can draft these trust documents for you and help ensure that you can financially qualify for Medicaid benefits.
Resolving Eligibility Issues
Medicaid Trusts - click HERE to learn more about how our Medicaid Trusts will protect your assets.
Asset re-assignment - 1. life insurance policies - almost always, spouses name each other as beneficiaries in their life insurance policies, while for everyday life this is great, however, when a spouse enters a nursing home and begins receiving Medicaid benefits it's imperative that you re-name beneficiaries for your life insurance policies. Why? Because if the "healthy" spouse living at home were to pass before the spouse in the nursing home he or she would would receive the death benefit and therefore disqualifying them from Medicaid benefits. 2. Wills - just as with life insurance policies a Will could disqualify an individual form receiving Medicaid benefits if they were to inherit assets if the at home spouse were to pass first. 3. Real estate - as above, if the spouses own a home together, the spouse receiving Medicaid benefits should be removed from the deed of the home. If the at home spouse were to pass first, the individual receiving benefits would then be the owner of the home and the home would need to be sold and the proceeds used for their care.

Don't Sell Your Home, Give Away or "Spend Down" Your Assets Before Calling Us

If you or a loved one will need nursing home care within the next 6 months contact us today to preserve your family's assets

learn more...contact us today!

Medicaid Plus, LLC provides Medicaid Planning, Medicaid Application Assistance and Legal Services for Long Term Care Providers in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware. Our on staff elder law attorneys can also prepare legal documents such as Wills, Powers Of Attorney [financial and health care], Advanced Directives, Living Trusts, Asset Protection, Irrevocable Trusts and more.