When you are young, you may not give much thought to where you could end up in a few decades – or a few short years. But the reality is that your health may decline, your finances could dwindle, and your support network may wane. Part of estate planning is deciding what happens to your assets after you die. Another equally important aspect is planning for long-term care and related expenses. Working with an experienced attorney, you can develop a personalized strategy that gives you the peace of mind you deserve to age well. Talk to Palmer & Slay, PLLC, about nursing home planning.
Strategies For Paying For Nursing Home and Long-term Care
Whether you plan to one day be housed in a nursing home or assisted living facility, or you want to have in-home care, you should be prepared to address the significant expenses that come with them. For instance, nursing homes can cost upwards of $85,000 per year, a cost which is expected to only increase as inflation continues and the aging population increases. These are serious future dollar figures that require a strategic approach today.
Some possible plans that your attorney can develop may include:
Medicaid Planning
Medicaid can cover at least a portion of the cost of nursing home care, as well as in-home care. However, because Medicaid is a needs-based program, the individual must prove that he or she has insufficient assets and income to pay for the care they require. We can begin the process of making this determination by evaluating your current financial situation to see whether you are already eligible for Medicaid.
If you are not currently eligible, you may worry about whether you will need to spend down or liquidate your assets. The good news is that steps can be taken to avoid depleting your property to meet the needs-based requirements of Medicaid. For instance, an asset protection trust can shield your property while allowing you to qualify for Medicaid. There are also more options if one spouse resides in a nursing home and the other remains at home. In a situation like this, there may be more leniency with respect to income and assets. We can discuss the relevant factors and your options for using Medicaid to pay for your long-term care.
Emergency Nursing Home Care
Although planning ahead of time is always best, life is complicated and sometimes emergencies happen. An otherwise healthy individual could suddenly need long-term or nursing home care. There may be an accident resulting in an urgent need to transport the patient into a care facility. The worry then becomes whether you will need to use up your life savings to pay for care.
Don’t panic. Emergencies happen, and despite what a nursing home administrator may have told you, there might be options for planning and saving even at this late stage. Our firm has developed asset protection strategies that can enable an individual to qualify for Medicaid without having to use up everything they own. We encourage you to contact us right away to determine the best way to obtain the long-term or nursing home care you need.
Keeping Your Home
Being able to keep your home while qualifying for nursing home care is a major concern that many of our clients have. There is a Medicaid home exemption rule that may apply in your case. If you are married, and either you or your spouse can remain in the family home while the other is housed in a nursing facility, the value of the home will be exempt when Medicaid calculates the value of assets. As for unmarried individuals, the value of the house will be exempt, provided they intend to return home later.
What an individual would not want to encounter is a situation known as estate recovery. This occurs when Medicaid takes money that was spent on the individual’s nursing home care from their home equity after they pass away. Careful planning can avoid this, so you should reach out to our firm right away to learn more.
Other Important Planning Tools
Every case of long-term and nursing home care is unique, so our experienced legal team will review all available options to help you select the best way to meet your needs down the road. These may include:
- Strategies to handle financial matters like taxes and meeting basic cost of living expenses
- Powers of attorney (e.g. medical and financial) that allow someone to make medical and financial decisions on your behalf if you are unable to
- Healthcare directive (also known as a living will) to ensure your end-of-life care is managed properly
- Annuities
- Long-term care insurance
- Reverse mortgages
- VA benefits, if applicable
- Life insurance
- Private insurance, which may cover short-term care
- Paying for home health aides, a less expensive option
We also help clients address a number of matters that are often related to their long-term care. These include guardianship proceedings, caregiver agreements (contracts), and helping clients understand their nursing home residents’ rights. Finally, if you have not created a comprehensive estate plan to help dispense with your assets after your passing, we can help you do so.
Contact Our Brandon & Rankin County Nursing Home Planning Attorneys
The most important thing to bear in mind about nursing and long-term care is that everyone has options. The second most important thing to know is that a seasoned attorney can help you explore those options and select the one that works best for your specific situation. Get started by scheduling your initial consultation with Palmer & Slay, PLLC. Call us today.
Palmer & Slay, PLLC, assists clients within Mississippi, including Scott County, Rankin County, Brandon, Flowood, East Jackson, and beyond.