Indianapolis Medicaid lawyers can work with you to determine if you need to put a Medicaid plan in place. Many people could benefit from the creation of a Medicaid plan, but unfortunately far too many people do not realize they need a plan to qualify for Medicaid or they wait to make their plans until it is too late and their wealth is already at serious risk of being lost.
Making a Medicaid plan could help you to save your legacy and ensure you are able to hand down money and property to your loved ones. You need to talk with an experienced attorney as soon as possible about the creation of a Medicaid plan because you do not want to wait so long to take the necessary planning steps that saving your wealth becomes difficult or impossible. Frank & Kraft can help you now to determine both what plans you need to make and how to carry out those plans, so give us a call as soon as possible to get your plans underway.
Now is the Right Time to Make a Medicaid Plan
Waiting to make a Medicaid plan can have disastrous consequences because Medicaid could be the only outside source of payment for long-term care or for nursing home care. If you do not have a Medicaid plan and you cannot get qualified for Medicaid as a result of having too many assets, you may still need to go into a nursing home or you may still need to hire home healthcare aides. The problem is, you won’t be able to get anyone to pay for this care for you.
Medicare covers skilled nursing care only, which is care provided by someone with medical training. The routine nursing home care or long-term care most people get when they get old or sick doesn’t require medical training, because it just requires help with basic activities of daily living such as bathing or getting dressed. Medicare provides no coverage for this care at all, so if you cannot get access to means-tested Medicaid, and you haven’t purchased an optional and often very expensive long-term care insurance policy, you will be out of luck when it comes to coverage for nursing home bills or long-term care costs.
The problem with qualifying for Medicaid is that you cannot get covered if you have too many assets or financial resources — and many seniors do because they have spent their lifetimes saving and building wealth. You don’t want to have to impoverish yourself in order to become eligible for Medicaid to cover your nursing home care, and the key to avoiding this is to make a plan in advance to structure the ownership of your assets so your money and property do not count as resources that would disqualify you from getting covered.
You should work with an experienced attorney to make this plan early, well before you need care, because of Medicaid’s five year lookback rule. This rule stipulates that you will be temporarily disqualified from receiving Medicaid for a period of time after you have transferred wealth for less than fair market value or after you have given away wealth. If you gave away or transferred money or property in the five years before the time you are trying to get Medicaid benefits, you’ll be disqualified from coverage based on the value of property transferred divided by the average monthly cost of a nursing home where you live. If you gave away $10,000 and a nursing home cost $5,000 per month, for example, you would be disqualified for the number of months determined by dividing $10,000 by $5,000, so you would be disqualified for a two month period.
The Medicaid planning process can involve the transfer of assets, so you should try to do this process as early as possible. If it is too late already and you need nursing home care imminently, there are options for crisis planning that Frank & Kraft can help you with so you can still preserve as much wealth as you can.
Getting Help from Indianapolis Medicaid Lawyers
Indianapolis Medicaid lawyers can provide the advice and assistance you need in determining when you should make a Medicaid plan and in putting this plan in place. You should reach out to our legal team as soon as you have acquired assets that you want to protect or if you are getting older and have become concerned about being able to pay for nursing home care or long-term care.
To find out about how our compassionate and knowledgeable legal team can help you, join us for a free seminar. You can also give us a call at 317-684-1100 or contact us online at any time to talk with an attorney about your situation.
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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