As you get older, the chances that you will need nursing home care increase substantially. Unfortunately, nursing homes are costly to pay for and it can be hard to find a home that will meet your needs. To make sure you can protect your assets and find the right nursing home, you need an advanced plan in place.
The Law Office of Michael Robinson, P.C. provides comprehensive assistance with nursing home planning to clients in the Finger Lakes, Rochester, Naples and surrounding areas. Our legal team helps you whether you want to protect assets in case you need future nursing home care, or whether you have concerns about the imminent need for nursing home services.
We assist both those who will become nursing home residents as well as their family members. Give us a call today at (585) 546-1734 to find out more about the services we can offer that are customized to your situation and to get answers to important questions including:
- When should nursing home planning start?
- What is involved in nursing home planning?
- How can a Finger Lakes nursing home planning lawyer help?
When Should Nursing Home Planning Start?
Nursing home planning must start early to be most effective. If you do not have a plan in place, your family could be left scrambling in the case of a medical emergency which necessitates your admission to a nursing home. Too often, patients are hospitalized with a serious illness or injury, they cannot go home again, and their families are forced to try to find a nursing home with open beds under these stressful circumstances. If research has already been completed and a good nursing home chosen, there will be no questions regarding where a patient should be admitted when nursing home becomes necessary.
Nursing home planning also involves doing more than just researching which nursing home is the right one. You must also create a plan to pay for the costs of care, which may be thousands of dollar per month. Medicare and most private insurance policies don’t pay for routine nursing home care, so you cannot count on your bills being paid, even if you are insured. You need to make a plan well before the time of nursing home admission so your personal assets and property are protected and your nursing home bills are covered.
What is Involved in Nursing Home Planning?
For many people, the most important component of nursing home planning is Medicaid planning. Medicaid is one of the only ways to get nursing home care paid for, other than paying the bills from your own personal assets. If you do not have a plan in place to ensure Medicaid can begin paying for care as soon as you need it, you could spend your life savings in a matter of months.
Medicaid planning is necessary because there are both income limits and resource limits for Medicare. If you are a senior with a house, retirement savings, money in the bank, and other assets, you probably won’t qualify for Medicaid. If you do qualify, your assets could be subject to being taken after your death due to the Medicaid estate recovery process in which the state tries to recoup money spent on medical services provided to someone 55 and older.
With Medicaid planning, it is possible to structure ownership so assets you have don’t count as resources when qualifying for coverage and so there is no risk of losing those assets during the estate recovery process. Your plan has to be made at least five years in advance to maximize asset protection, though, because Medicaid looks back five years prior to your application and imposes a period of disqualification from benefits if you engaged in strategic asset transfers.
Our Finger Lakes nursing home planning lawyers help with Medicaid planning. We also assist you in other steps in the nursing home planning process including finding a nursing home which as an acceptable reputation for providing strong patient care and reviewing nursing home admission paperwork to ensure you do not inadvertently and unknowingly give up any of your rights.
How can a Finger Lakes Nursing Home Planning Lawyer Help?
The Law Office of Michael Robinson, P.C. wants to help you make sure you can find the right nursing home, that you can afford it, and that you understand the nursing home admission paperwork. To find out more about the services we offer to clients in Finger Lakes, Rochester, Naples and surrounding areas, give us a call today at (585) 546-1734.
