Medicaid Planning & Immediate Annuities Immediate annuities can be ideal planning tools for spouses of nursing home residents.  For single individuals, they are usually less useful.  An immediate annuity, in its simplest form, is a contract with an insurance company under which the consumer pays a certain amount of money to the company and the […]

Medicaid Planning: Protection of House & Life Estates For many people, setting up a “life estate” is the most simple and appropriate alternative for protecting the home from estate recovery.  A life estate is a form of joint ownership of property between two or more people.  They each have an ownership interest in the property, […]

Medicaid Planning & Testamentary Trusts Testamentary trusts are trusts created under a will.  The Medicaid rules provide a special “safe harbor” for testamentary trusts created by a deceased spouse for the benefit of a surviving spouse.  The assets of these trusts are treated as available to the Medicaid applicant only to the extent that the […]

Medicaid Planning & Income-Only Trusts An “irrevocable” trust, on the other hand, is one that cannot be changed after it has been created. In most cases, this type of trust is drafted so that the income is payable to you (the person establishing the trust, called the “grantor”) for life, and the principal cannot be […]

Medicaid Eligibility & Permitted Transfers While most transfers are penalized with a period of Medicaid ineligibility of up to five years, certain transfers are exempt from this penalty. Even after entering a nursing home, you may transfer any asset to the following individuals without having to wait out a period of Medicaid ineligibility: In addition, […]

About Medicaid Program For all practical purposes, in the United States the only “insurance” plan for long-term institutional care is Medicaid.  Lacking access to alternatives such as paying privately or being covered by a long-term care insurance policy, most people pay out of their own pockets for long-term care until they become eligible for Medicaid.  […]

Skilled Nursing & Medicare Medicare Part A covers up to 100 days of “skilled nursing” care per spell of illness.  However, the definition of “skilled nursing” and the other conditions for obtaining this coverage are quite stringent, meaning that few nursing home residents receive the full 100 days of coverage.  As a result, Medicare pays […]