Creating Long-Term Care Planning Strategies
The cost for assisted living, nursing home care and home care is expensive. Unfortunately, many people cannot afford to pay the going rate for the care they need. Medicare only provides limited care for a limited period of time. Medicaid, on the other hand, is a joint federal and state program that helps fund the care for a wide variety of medical needs, including long-term care and assisted living. Whereas Medicare provides health coverage for elderly individuals no matter what their income is, Medicaid is limited to recipients whose assets do not exceed a certain level, currently $14,000 in New York State.
Too often, elderly couples whose initial application for Medicaid is denied, will have to spend their life savings to pay for nursing home care for one of them. Often, this leaves the healthy spouse impoverished, with insufficient funds to live on.
Not surprisingly, many elderly individuals and their families are concerned about depleting their own life savings on medical costs and assisted living. At the office of Joseph H. Gruner, P.C., in Tarrytown, New York, we help our clients with Medicaid planning and other estate planning strategies that allow them to preserve their assets and pass them to loved ones, and still obtain the care and assistance they need.
Help From an Experienced Long-Term Care Planning Lawyer
Successfully qualifying for Medicaid benefits can be complex. Simply giving money to your loved ones is not a viable strategy. Under federal law, the government has the ability to analyze, or “look back,” over the last five years to view gifts and transfers. You can be rendered ineligible for Medicaid benefits for making gifts to loved ones during that time period. By addressing Medicaid eligibility before you need these benefits, you will be able to utilize a wide array of strategies. We use a number of strategies to help our clients with long-term care planning, including transferring assets to a trust, purchasing an annuity, lending money to a trusted family member, purchasing long-term care insurance, and prepaying certain expenses that are deemed exempt by Medicaid. Since every person’s needs are different, I will work closely with you in order to determine the best strategies to accomplish your long-term planning goals.