A lot of people are amazed when they find out how expensive long-term care is these days. If you calculate the average annual cost for a private room in a nursing home coupled with the average length of stay the reality is that you may be looking at an expense that exceeds $200,000 toward the end of your life. This is obviously going to be difficult for a lot of people to handle out-of-pocket, and Medicare does not pay for long-term care.
An alternative that exists would be to seek Medicaid eligibility because Medicaid does in fact pay for long-term care. Because of the fact that Medicaid is technically in existence as a safety net for people who have serious financial need there is an upper resource limit that you cannot exceed if you want to qualify for Medicaid.
This limit is just $2,000, so you may think that there is no way that you will qualify. The reason why a lot of people can qualify who do in fact have some resources is because not everything that you own counts toward this number. And, if you are married and you need long-term care and your spouse does not he or she can keep his or her half of the community resources up to a certain amount.
This amount has changed for the better now that we are in 2012. The healthy spouse may retain $113,640 in countable assets this year as opposed to the $109,560 that held sway in 2011.
Becoming eligible for Medicaid can be a solution to a difficult dilemma. If you would like to explore possible Medicaid eligibility strategies simply take a moment to arrange for a consultation with a good Indianapolis elder law attorney.
Mr. Kraft assists clients primarily in the areas of estate planning and administration, Medicaid planning, federal and state taxation, real estate and corporate law, bringing the added perspective of an accounting background to his work.
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