There are many reasons why you may need Medicaid to pay your nursing home bills. Maybe you cannot afford long term care insurance. Medical bills may use up most of your savings before you need nursing home care. Despite saving well for retirement, a large portion of your savings may have been lost in the stock market meltdown. Whatever the reasons, if you need Medicaid to pay your long term care expenses, you may need to engage in Medicaid planning to protect your assets from the government.
If you fail to engage in Medicaid planning, you and your family can suffer serious consequences. To gain eligibility for Medicaid, you must show that your income and assets do not exceed certain amounts. After your death, the government can recover from your estate the amount of benefits it paid on your behalf through a process known as Medicaid estate recovery.
Unless you take steps to protect your assets through Medicaid planning, there may be very little left for your surviving spouse or partner to live on, let alone an inheritance for your children or grandchildren. In addition, without proper Medicaid planning, you may have no discretionary income while you are in a nursing home to pay for items such as clothing, furniture, a computer or television, favorite foods, toiletries, books, magazines, music, flowers, etc. You may also be unable to pay for cards or gifts for friends and relatives or even the stamps to send them. Even if you are unsure whether you will need Medicaid, it is a good idea to learn what Medicaid allows you to keep and what you will be required to give up, while you still have time to engage in Medicaid planning. Otherwise, your quality of life, or that of your spouse or partner, may be drastically reduced.
One of the most comprehensive Medicaid planning books is How to Protect Your Family's Assets from Devastating Nursing Home Costs. Written by an elder law attorney with nearly three decades of experience, this book answers important questions that arise during Medicaid planning such as: when to apply for Medicaid, what income and asset qualification rules apply, how much cash you can keep and still be eligible for Medicaid, what assets you can keep to pay for funeral and burial expenses, what assets your spouse can keep, and what happens if both spouses need nursing home care. The author also explains how assets such as real estate, business interests, life insurance, and retirement accounts should be handled as part of Medicaid planning.
How to Protect Your Family's Assets is a primer on the right way to go about Medicaid planning. Going about Medicaid planning the wrong way can prevent you from being eligible for Medicaid benefits. How to Protect Your Family's Assets from Devastating Nursing Home Costs provides essential information on the spenddown of assets, the lookback period, prepaying expenses, gifting, transferring assets, transactions with adult children of the Medicaid recipient, and transferring property to your spouse. Various types of estate planning trusts are also discussed, including revocable trusts, irrevocable trusts, and self settled trusts.
This Medicaid planning guide also features sections on other key topics such as annuities and Medicaid recovery against the recipient’s estate. With five star reviews, any individual concerned with preserving income and assets can benefit from reading How to Protect Your Family's Assets.
The Complete Guide to Medicaid and Nursing Home Costs provides an overview of what Medicaid covers, the qualification rules regarding assets and income, what to do with your home, Medicaid estate recovery, using annuities in Medicaid planning, making gifts and the lookback period, long term care insurance, life insurance, and using different types of trusts in Medicaid planning.
How Seniors Can Protect What They Have
Being a senior citizen in the current economic climate is more challenging than ever. Between rising health care costs, living longer, lower returns on investments, and adult children increasingly leaning on their parents for financial support, seniors today are struggling more than ever to hold on to what they have left.
In this environment, there is a strong possibility you or your spouse may have to rely on Medicaid for long term care. But these benefits come at a price. In addition to requiring you to spend down your assets to become eligible for Medicaid, the government can put liens on your property to recover its due. Probate can also cost your estate money, with fees being paid to attorneys, executors, and the court. Finally, your estate may owe money to the government for taxes. If you are like most people, you dislike the idea of losing what you and your family may have worked generations to accumulate.
Educating yourself about asset protection is a key part of protecting what you have. Fortunately, if you know what to do, there are many steps you can take to preserve your assets and your estate. Asset Protection Planning for Seniors is a guide to the various strategies you can use to preserve your nest egg. It addresses topics such as planning for incapacity, conservatorships, estate planning, inheritances, probate, living trusts, estate taxes, gift taxes, nursing home bills, and Medicaid planning.
Asset Protection Planning for Seniors also covers one of the most common issues facing seniors, which is the decision to go to an attorney for help, or to go it alone, which usually means doing nothing. Written by an accomplished elder law attorney, Asset Protection Planning for Seniors is filled with real life examples that will help you make your own decisions about how to plan your estate, deal with long term care expenses, and protect your assets.
For related information, see Long Term Care Books.
More Information on Medicaid Planning
To learn more about protecting your assets and your estate, see our page on Medicaid Planning.
. Written by an elder law attorney with nearly three decades of experience, this book answers important questions that arise during Medicaid planning such as: when to apply for Medicaid, what income and asset qualification rules apply, how much cash you can keep and still be eligible for Medicaid, what assets you can keep to pay for 
is a guide to the various strategies you can use to preserve your nest egg. It addresses topics such as planning for incapacity, conservatorships, estate planning, inheritances, probate, living trusts, estate taxes, gift taxes, nursing home bills, and Medicaid planning.
