Medicaid Issues

As an estate planning attorney I frequently get asked the following question: If my spouse or I go into a nursing home how do we qualify the nursing home spouse for Medicaid? In general we need to understand that Medicaid was designed to provide medial assistance to individuals who have no available assets and insufficient income to pay the nursing home bill. Medicaid was not designed to pay the nursing home bill if an individual has sufficient assets to privately pay. With recent changes to the Medicaid laws, the government has made it more difficult to qualify for Medicaid. The good news is that there are legal ways to protect the non-nursing home spouse from being financially devastated if there is no long term care insurance and nursing home care is needed. Remember, Medicaid is a form of welfare and many of us should start planning ahead now because there may not be available Medicaid funds in the future. Estate planning is not just about who will inherit your money when you die, estate planning is also about making sure that your assets or your money works for you during your lifetime.