June 16, 2016

If you are relatively healthy now, you may think that you can skip out on the process of planning ahead for long-term care, but this is a mistake. What happens in the event that you sustain an injury or an illness requiring nursing home care and you don’t meet the asset or income test for Medicaid. For far too many individuals, the option is to pay for care out of pocket each month in the nursing home until they have spent down their assets enough in order to qualify for coverage.

Monthly nursing home bills, however, can be more than $3,500 a month, meaning that your entire life savings can be decimated extremely quickly. It also leaves your loved ones, including a spouse, with no financial cushion or protection. It would be extremely frustrating and likely ashamed to feel that a lifetime of hard work and disciplined savings has gone to the waste, leaving your family without any form of protection.

There is also no need to spend majority or all of your assets on nursing home care prior to qualifying for Medicaid coverage. There are safe harbor provisions that allow you plan ahead and protect your assets, but in order to do this, you must approach the planning process well in advance. This is one reason why you need to set up a consultation with an elder law planning attorney who has a focus on Medicaid.

Planning now helps to minimize the chances of problems well into the future. If you have already encountered a long-term care crisis currently, it may be too late to take action, but planning ahead helps to protect your loved ones and your assets. Are you ready to start the process now? Contact our offices to set up a meeting.