A Medicaid lawyer at Frank & Kraft can help seniors to make plans to qualify for Medicaid coverage if they require Medicaid to pay for their care. This is an issue that a significant number of people need to address as they begin to get older. Many seniors come to rely on Medicaid because Medicaid can be the only source of insurance coverage for long term care.
Medicaid is a means-tested benefits program and there are rules for qualifying for benefits. Frank & Kraft will assist you in determining what you need to do to qualify for Medicaid, why getting Medicaid benefits could be so important and what the challenges are with getting Medicaid to pay for your care.
We can also help you to overcome those challenges so you can get the coverage you need, when you need it, while protecting your wealth. Taking action and talking with a Medicaid lawyer is important because millions of seniors end up needing Medicaid benefits.
How Many Seniors Rely on Medicaid?
According to Motley Fool, there were 97 million Americans who were covered by Medicaid at some point during the 2015 year. Because people move in-and-out of being covered by Medicaid, this number reflects the total people who were part of the program at some time during 2015. Of the 97 million Americans who got Medicaid benefits during the 2015 year, a total of six million were 65 years-old or older.
Medicaid is widely used by older people because of the fact that it’s likely the only source of insurance coverage for the kind of long-term care that most seniors need. Many seniors who require long term care in the home or who must move into a nursing home do not need skilled medical care. Instead, they need help with routine activities of daily living, like getting dressed or consuming food or showering or using the bathroom.
The problem is, only skilled medical care, like changing surgical bandages, is covered by Medicare and by most private insurers. Custodial care is typically not paid for by Medicare, Medigap or Medicare Advantage policies, or private health insurance. Although seniors could opt to purchase long term care insurance to cover this kind of custodial care, long term care policies can be too expensive for many people to afford and could have limitations that make coverage ineffective for many seniors.
Since there’s no other options for the payment of nursing home care costs or long term care costs, qualifying for Medicaid becomes the only alternative for seniors, other than paying for care privately. Paying privately could result in a person’s life savings being quickly spent, especially as Motley Fool indicates the national average cost for a semi-private room in a nursing home is $82,608 and the national average costs of in-home care provided by a home health aide is $46,332.
This is a huge amount of money to pay, and it is an amount many families could be forced to cope with since 70% of Americans who have lived until aged 65 will some day end up needing long term care and will need it for an average of three years.
If you don’t want to end up having to pay vast sums of money ever month, likely losing your wealth and your ability to leave a legacy, you need to understand how you can get covered by Medicaid. You could become one of the six million seniors who get Medicaid to pay for your care if you have worked with a Medicaid lawyer to ensure you’re eligible for Medicaid benefits when you need them.
Getting Help from A Medicaid Lawyer
A Medicaid lawyer at Frank & Kraft can provide you with assistance in learning the Medicaid qualification rules. For most seniors, the problem that prevents them from qualifying for benefits is that they have a nest egg they’ve worked for during the course of their life. The assets a senior has could be considered countable resources that render him ineligible for Medicaid coverage. When this happens, seniors usually have to spend their money on the nursing home care or long term care that they need because they don’t have any other way to pay for it. Seniors end up impoverishing themselves and, once they’ve got few or no resources left, Medicaid finally starts to pay for nursing home care.
Frank & Kraft can help you to avoid having to spend all of your money on care by working with you to make a Medicaid plan to keep your assets safe. Join us for a free seminar to find out about how we can help with your Medicaid plan. You can also give us a call at 317-684-1100 or contact us online to get your personalized plan in place.
Paul A. Kraft, Estate Planning 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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