Why You Should Never Seek Medicaid Funding Advice from a Nursing Home

Avoid Unnecessary Complications with an Estate Planning Attorney

Paying for long-term care can be expensive, and worrying about where the money will come from can cause a lot of anxiety. In situations like these, it’s understandable that you’d want to find answers quickly, but getting legal advice from a nursing home isn’t the right choice. The expert estate planning attorneys at Safe Harbor are the right choice to help you with long-term care funding, while also protecting your assets and avoiding undue worry.

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What You’ll Learn FROM THIS VIDEO

• Attorneys who do not specialize in Estate Planning can make costly mistakes in documentation.
• Nursing Homes may not understand the best route for paying for care in your situation.
• The expert attorneys at Safe Harbor can help you avoid stress and protect your assets.

HERE IS THE TRANSCRIPT FROM THIS VIDEO

Margaret Barrett:  Hello. My name is Margaret Barrett, owner, and founder of Safe Harbor Estate Law. You may be worried about losing all your money or your loved one’s money paying for long-term care. And when that happens, you may worry about getting on Medicaid so the government will pay for the care. We help clients like you every day to protect their assets, to follow the Medicaid rules so they can get the government to pay their share, and to minimize hassle. Today, I want to tell you why people in your situation should not get their legal advice from the nursing home. A wonderful family recently came to us in a panic. Their beloved mother had been in the nursing home for about a year and her cost of care was over $10,000 per month. Understandably, the family was alarmed when they had to start paying all this money. They were glad they got her into a good local nursing home, but nobody’s perfect.

Somebody at the nursing home gave them bad legal advice. And unfortunately, this is a pretty common situation. What was the bad advice? It was this, just pay all of mom’s money to the nursing home until she has just $3,000 left. And then the nursing home will apply to Medicaid for free. Sounded like no problem. And the family didn’t know that an elder lawyer could have told them this is bad advice. So they followed the advice. They did the best they could. And when the nursing home applied, that’s when the shock and the panic happened because Medicaid denied the application. And now they only had $3,000 left and they did not know where to turn. Who was to pay the $10,000 per month if Medicaid wouldn’t pay? The problem was it turns out that mom’s name was still on the house and the county was demanding the house be sold before they would pay.

This was a big problem for the family because one brother was still living in the house and he had lived in it for years and taken care of mom. And they had gone to a lawyer years before, not an elder lawyer, who had prepared paperwork that they thought protected the house for Medicaid, but it didn’t. That paperwork was not done right either. Thankfully things took a turn for the better when the nursing home realized they were in over their heads and they referred this wonderful family to us. They knew that we could help them out of this mess. Because mom was down to only $3,000, the kids pitched together to hire us for a Medicaid application. The good news is not only are we getting mom on Medicaid, we are protecting the house for the family. And we are clearing up this complicated real estate issue with the house.

The family is so relieved. The sad part is if they would’ve come to us a year ago, instead of listening to the nursing home, we could’ve saved them a lot more money in addition to a lot of stress and panic because the Medicaid application was not accepted. We could have cleared up the mess with the real estate ahead of time, and that would’ve gone much smoother with the county. The bottom line is this, get your elder law advice from an elder law attorney who is proactive about planning and protecting your assets. If you are in this situation, or you’re just wondering if you might benefit from legal advice, please call our firm. Our client relations team would be happy to talk to you and learn if you are in a position that we could help. We look forward to helping you avoid the stress, and hassle, and financial loss that this sweet family endured.

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