Elder Law & Medicaid planning
Elder law is a field of law that involves Medicaid planning, but that also involves so much more. Elder law matters are not just legal issues affecting the elderly. Anyone who has family counting on them; concerns about their own medical treatment in the future; or assets they care about should get help from an elder law attorney.
Parman & Easterday provides invaluable assistance with Medicaid planning and with all types of elder law issues faced by clients in the Kansas City KS or MO area. We can help you to ensure you have made provisions to protect your family, protect your assets, and maintain control over your destiny, even in the event of incapacity. Give us a call today so we can offer comprehensive elder law services personalized to meet your needs and so we can answer questions you may have including:
Why is getting elder law help important for everyone?
What will elder law attorneys do for you?
How can an elder law attorney help?
Why is Getting Elder Law Help Important?
Getting elder law help is important because life comes with risk. At any time, you could be hurt and become unable to communicate. You could develop a serious physical or mental illness which leaves you unable to manage your assets or even make your own healthcare choices. You could even pass away. These are concerns that primarily affect seniors, which is how elder law gets its name. Unfortunately, people both young and old can face unexpected illnesses, injuries, and other tragedies.
If something bad happens to you, your family could be left uncertain of your wishes for medical care and forced to make tough choices or even pull the plug on machines that keep you alive. Your family could be forced to go to court, have you declared incapacitated, and have someone named as your guardian just in order to be able to manage your assets. Your estate could also be diminished in value due to taxes and your family could be left fighting over assets if you pass away.
The field of elder law allows you to avoid all these undesirable outcomes by planning ahead to make your wishes known and to protect both you and the people in your life who you care about the most.
What Will an Elder Law Attorney Do for You?
An elder law attorney will help you to identify the risks that you and your family face in the future and will help you to use available legal tools to mitigate, minimize, or eliminate those risks. Some of the different ways in which an elder law attorney can assist you include:
Creating a last will and testament.
Creating trusts for asset protection and incapacity planning
Creating a power of attorney so you name an agent who is in charge of managing assets and/or so you can select a healthcare proxy.
Creating advanced directives such as a living will so the decision on CPR, the use of a feeding tube, and other healthcare matters is made in advance by you and not left to your loved ones.
Planning for guardianship of children and pets in case something happens to you
Securing insurance and taking other steps necessary to provide financially for your loved ones after your death.
Your attorney can also help you to plan for things that make life worth living, like providing a college education for your children and achieving financial security during your retirement years. From asset protection to financial planning to estate planning, we are here to offer you advice on the legal tools you need to achieve security and to plan for whatever the future brings.
Medicaid Planning
At Parman & Easterday, our legal team believes you deserve to keep the money, property, and assets that you have worked all your life to acquire. These assets should serve as your legacy and you should be able to hand property down to your loved ones or use your money to support charities that you care about. Unfortunately, if you need to go into a nursing home and you do not have a Medicaid plan in place, that might not happen.
Nursing homes are extremely costly, and not covered by private insurers or even Medicare in most cases. Medicaid covers the cost of care, but only if you spend down your assets or if you make an advanced plan to protect them.
Our Medicaid planning lawyers in Overland Park Kansas, can help you to create your personalized plan. Give us a call today to find out more about your personalized solutions for protecting your assets and qualifying for Medicaid and to get answers to questions including:
What is involved in Medicaid planning?
When should I begin the Medicaid planning process?
What is Involved in Medicaid Planning?
Medicaid planning is a process of trying to get Medicaid to cover you sooner than the program otherwise would. Medicaid is a means-tested government benefits program, which has strict qualification criteria. It is also one of the only sources of nursing home payments available, as Medicare and most private insurers simply will not pay for routine custodial care in a nursing home.
Because Medicaid may be your only chance to get nursing home care covered, not being able to qualify for Medicaid benefits could destroy your legacy. You could be forced to spend your entire life savings and even sell property if you end up needing nursing home care as you get older.
You would eventually be able to qualify as you spent down your resources and came below Medicaid’s permissible asset level that is required for you to qualify for benefits. The problem, of course, is then your savings would be gone and you would not have a legacy to leave to your loved ones.
The Medicaid planning process involves making sure your assets and property can be protected. You can structure ownership of this property in a smart way so that the assets and property you have in your possession are not actually counted as your possessions when assessing eligibility for means-tested Medicaid benefits. The assets will not be disqualifying if you do Medicaid planning correctly, and on paper you will not have resources, so Medicaid will begin to pay for nursing home care when you need it.
You can do this process by using special types of trusts, and by making strategic transfers of assets. It is is imperative that you follow all legal guidelines for doing the process correctly to protect your assets, so you should strongly consider getting help from a legal professional.
When Should I Begin the Medicaid Planning Process?
Medicaid has a rule in place called the five year lookback rule. The purpose of the rule is to make sure that people do not transfer or give away property just to qualify for benefits. Medicaid will look back five years from when you require nursing home care, and will see if any assets were transferred. If so, you’ll be disqualified from Medicaid for a set number of months equal to dividing the value of transferred assets by the average monthly nursing home cost. During the disqualification period, you will likely have to pay out of pocket for nursing care.
To protect the maximum assets, this means you should try to create a Medicaid plan five years before you require nursing home care. If it is too late, you should act as quickly as possible to protect the maximum in assets.
How Can an Elder Law Attorney Help?
Parman & Easterday attorneys have decades of experiencing offering advice and representation on elder law matters to clients in and around the Kansas City area. When you want to ensure you have taken advantage of the full measure of legal tools and protections available for both you and your loved ones, we can provide you with advice and solutions.
Give us a call today at (913) 385-9400 in Overland Park to discover more about the field of elder law and the ways in which an experienced elder law attorney can help protect you in an uncertain world. You can also contact us online to discover more about the personalized services we provide to elder law clients.