On Friday, August 11th, Attorneys Steven Berger and Paula Mattson-Sarli discuss elder law.

Crisis planning is when one spouse ends up in a nursing home and you want to protect the assets for the one still in the home. Medicaid can pay for skilled care. Medicare would be covering the hospital stay when for an example a fall occurs. However that ends. Before it gets to that point, you should contact an elder law attorney.

There is a an activity called “spend down”. We can’t use our funds however we want as Medicaid will review all transactions and we want to protect the community spouse. There are allowances for income and certain assets that can be kept. The Spouse in the nursing home can keep $2500 and the other spouse can keep $147000.

We can maximize the benefit by using funds by doing prepaid funeral planning, buying a house, paying off your mortgage, renovate etc. However, if there is so much money to spend down then its suggested to open a Medicaid annuity which would be an income stream for the community spouse. This can be a complicated process.

What is the “5 year look-back”? This is from the day you apply and five years back. If during that time you made any large “gifts” or where you sold something, but weren’t paid fair market value then it may impact your ability to qualify for Medicaid. The penalty can be one month for up to $10,000, because the presumption is that it was done to qualify for Medicaid.

Medicaid does not cover home care or assisted living care unless you receive a waiver. An irrevocable trust plan can also be very helpful in this situation.

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