LTC/medicaid/elder care attorney

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Bigdawg

Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
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Hello ER members. In Arkansas again dealing with elderly mother. Also here closing my sisters estate. Below is the link to my dealings with her this summer/fall.

https://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f38/sister-end-of-life-110124.html

Looking for some advice. My Mother has SS and pension totalling $3300/month. Maybe a few other individual stocks. Most likely less than 10k, but I am researching. She entered a skilled nursing facility the other day. Insurance covers the first 20 days or so. Aprox $6600/month after that. With her $3300/mo that leaves an additional $3300/mo for me to cover. I can do that. On face value, she is not eligible for medicaid. It has been suggested that she could be on medicaid where they take her $3300 each month and medicaid covers the rest. Is this worth spending aprox $1500 to consult an elder care attorney? I am heading back east tomorrow for at least one week before I could be back here. Thinking about sitting down with an elder care attorney when I come back here in a week or two. Thoughts? Thanks in advance.

Selling sister's house to a guy who I sold my townhouse to a few years ago. Meeting today for a beer to discuss transaction.
 
Cindy and old shooter, thank you. She has $12k in her checking account and does receive that $3300 I mentioned early so we have some time to figure this out. I will be looking into the Qualified Income Trusts (QIT’s) – Also called Miller Income Trusts (MIT’s). Pretty sure I will be visiting an elder care attorney in the near future.
 
Based on our experience (in Maryland) by all means see the elder law attorney. He knew about stuff we had never heard of, in other words we didn't know what we didn't know.

And ignore or at least take with a large boulder of salt anything that anyone else tells you, even if they work in a nursing home. They only think they know; they probably don't.
 
I was guardian for a friend of mine in a nursing home. Once more care was required the cost doubled and her monthly income no longer covered the cost they asked for my permission to file for Medicaid. They handled it and it paid for what she couldn’t. I just had to make sure her checking account didn’t go over 2k. I was allowed to prepay her funeral costs.
 
Same here in CA. Net worth under 2 grand, they take pension and SS, pay the rest.
 
I went through this with my mother in early 2020. She was in the skilled nursing facility and Medicare paid for the first two months, then she would have to switch to LTC.

I talked to an elder care attorney and she wanted to charge $8,000 to do the Medicaid application. I ended up doing it myself. It was a lot of work, but my parents had very little assets. Even though the paperwork stack was about an inch thick.

If your mother does not have a husband or own a house you should definitely apply for Medicaid. The facility should have someone in their business office that can help you, but I think I would recommend that you hire an LTC attorney to do the work for you.

The reason for the attorney is that the money is gone anyway, either to the attorney or to the nursing home, so you may as well let the attorney save you the work.

Our nursing home required you to apply for Medicaid when your mother's assets became less than $50,000. Sounds like that is the case for you.

Like someone said previously, once on Medicaid, you will have to give the pension and SS to the nursing home and they will bill Medicaid for the difference. They allow a small allowance of $60/month or so for you to buy stuff for your mother.

Another important thing to do is to purchase a pre-paid funeral plan before the Medicaid application if completed. Medicaid allows you to pre-pay funeral expenses as a way of reducing your mother's assets.

The one snag in the plan is if the $3000/month is too high for some Medicaid treshold. My mother got $755/month from SS.

Bottom line get on this ASAP. You need to make the initial application without most of the supporting information to get a time stamp of having applied. When you finally get approved the payments will be retroactive to the initial application date.

No reason for you to have to pay the remainder of the LTC charges. I would have paid it all for my mother if I had to, but thank God I managed to work it out and not have to.

The Medicaid is wonderful. It pays all the medical bills that are not covered by other insurance. Mom had 7 ambulance rides and two weeks in the real hospital on top of all this and we have not had to pay a penny.

Good luck.
 
"Also,OP, are you really asking about the value of spending a one-time few hundred bucks that might have the potential to save you hundred$ per month Answer: of course!"

I agree with this. We had the same revelation about the decision to see our lawyer when my dad was in the same position as OP's mom - when we realized that spending money on the lawyer's consultation had the potential to save us thousands in the long run, we couldn't figure out why we had even hesitated!

Also...we ended up consulting a Medicaid expert, referred to us by someone at an assisted living place that we were checking out (and that we found we could't afford!) She was expensive, but worth every penny, because she knew every in and out of the Medicaid filing process in our county. She told me exactly what information to find for inclusion in the application. I spent weeks hunting it all down, then she wrote it up and submitted it to the right people. We were successful the very first time we applied. Turns out that she and our lawyer knew and respected each other, and worked hand in hand to help us through that very difficult time. I highly recommend finding and paying for a Medicaid expert.
 
Medicaid has a five year look back period. If you set up an irrevocable trust, I think it would have to be done five years ago. Unless this QI trust is different.
 
You're in the position many of our families have found ourselves in. Your mother has pretty decent income, and she's fortunate to live in a low cost of living place. $6,600 a month for full nursing home care is much less than in most states. Is the nursing home a decent enough environment for her care--long term? I just hope that she's happy living there--with all the activities good nursing homes have. And the nursing home should be happy to have a resident with her income.

When approaching the last stages of life, it's so important to have good physicians. If she spends down her assets and has to go on Medicaid, I pray her current doctors will accept Medicaid payments. Many doctors don't participate, and new and often sub-standard physicians have to be used. Make sure her doctors now are of high quality.
 
Lots of good info in post #8.

In 2017, I petitioned to become my mom's legal guardian, placed her in a memory care unit, and applied for Medicaid to pay for her care when her funds ran out. I used an attorney when I became her legal guardian. To complete the Medicaid application, I worked with a Benefit Specialist at the Aging and Disability Resource Center (ADRC) in my mom's county of residence. I found the Benefit Specialist to be very knowledge and competent even though my mom's situation was complicated by the fact that she was the sole owner of the residence she had been living in with her husband. Given that your mom's financials sound pretty straight forward, using an agency like ADRC may be an option for you.
 
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