What is Long-Term Care & Medicaid Planning?

Medicaid planning is a form of asset protection planning focused on ensuring the maximum possible preservation of your assets when you or a loved one needs nursing home care. Some individuals are fortunate enough to have long term care insurance, and this is something we recommend that our clients investigate. For the rest of the people faced with this concern, understanding Medicaid is critical. This is where a Medicaid planning Attorney in Austin, TX comes in. We help people learn more about this program. Our Austin Medicaid planning Lawyers have experience helping people like you with their long-term care and Medicaid planning.

At costs approaching $10,000 per month, even a moderate-length stay in a nursing home can destroy the financial well-being of all but the wealthiest families. Qualifying for Medicaid, the federal-state program that pays for long-term nursing home care, involves satisfying stringent asset and income criteria and can be a time-consuming, frustrating, and difficult process. Certain assets are exempt, while others are countable, and still others change from exempt to countable depending on the form in which they are held.

The range of clients we work with in this area includes relatively younger couples who want to understand the road ahead and make plans where they are in a position to take advantage of all options, as well as individuals or couples for whom a diagnosis has been made that may require long term care in the future. Planning for Medicaid can be especially helpful when one spouse may be in need of nursing home care while the other spouse will remain at home. The Medicaid rules refer to the spouse staying at home as the "community" spouse.  It is important that assets are preserved for the community spouse so that the couple's entire retirement savings is not spent on nursing home costs. We have a system we refer to as the "5 Year Plan" that preserves assets and satisfies the requirements of the five-year look back period for Medicaid.

We also work with clients for whom the need is here now: a parent or spouse in a nursing facility or other type of care facility. The elder law attorneys at Willi Law Firm can help you employ legal strategies to preserve your assets to the extent possible. We can assist in advance planning as well as Medicaid crisis planning. We can advise you on the spenddown process and help you avoid asset transfer penalties that can result when certain gifts are made.

It can be highly risky to attempt such planning without the advice of an elder law attorney. Medicaid qualification is complex, and unfortunately, there is a tremendous amount of incorrect and unreliable information that circulates about the types of strategies that do and do not work. Investing in Medicaid planning often pays for itself in money saved and peace of mind.

For further information on Medicaid planning, contact us to schedule a consultation with our Medicaid planning Attorney in Texas. The Travis County Medicaid planning Lawyers at Willi Law Firm, P.C. can be reached at (512) 288-3200.