Paul O. Dillon, Attorney at Law

How Can a Trust Be Used for Long-Term Care?

More than a few seniors who are retired or nearing retirement lose sleep worrying over being able to afford the expense of long-term care, including nursing home care, which can cost thousands monthly. The fallback option for many Americans is Medicaid; according to a recent article, “Long-Term-Care planning using trusts,” from the Journal of Accountancy., Medicaid is a joint federal-state program requiring spending down assets.

To be eligible for long-term care through Medicaid, a person’s “countable” assets must fall below an extremely low ceiling—in some states, no more than $2,000, with some provisions in some states protecting the “well” spouse. States vary in terms of which assets are counted, with many exempting a primary residence, for example.

For many people, planning for Medicaid for long-term care may consider the use of an irrevocable trust. The basic idea is this: by transferring assets to an irrevocable trust at least five years before applying for Medicaid for long-term care, the Medicaid agency will not count those assets in determining whether Medicaid’s asset ceiling is satisfied.

If the planning is done wrong, there is a risk of not qualifying, thereby defeating the objective of creating the irrevocable trust. In addition, any tax planning may be undone, causing liquidity and other problems.

Some people plan to qualify for Medicaid even though they have asset levels as high as $2 million or more. Much of this may be the family’s primary residence, especially in locations like New York City, with its elevated real estate market. Costs at nursing homes are equally high, with nursing homes costing private-pay patients upwards of $20,000 a month, or $250,000 per year.

Timing is a key part of planning for Medicaid. Many estate planning attorneys recommend clients consider planning in their mid-to-late 60s or early 70s to move assets into a Medicaid Asset Preservation Trust, also called a Medicaid Asset Protection Trust.

This is because of Medicaid’s five-year lookback period. Most states have a five-year look-back period for both nursing home and home health care. If any transfer of countable assets has been made within the preceding five years of applying for long-term-care Medicaid, there will be a penalty period when the person or their family must pay for the care. The penalty is typically measured by the length of time the transferred assets could have paid for care, based on the average costs of the state or the region.

While there is no way to know when a person will need long-term care, statistically speaking, a person in their mid-to-late 60s or early 70s can expect to be healthy enough to satisfy the five-year lookback.

Why not simply make gifts to children during this time to become eligible for Medicaid? For one reason, there’s no way to prevent a child from spending money given to them for safekeeping. A trust will protect assets from a child’s creditors, and if the child should undergo a divorce, the assets won’t end up in the ex-spouse’s bank accounts.

Using a trust for Medicaid planning could be combined with gifts made to children or assets placed in trust for children, depending on the individual’s financial and familial circumstances.

The creation of a Medicaid Asset Preservation Trust is critical. The estate planning attorney must seek to accomplish two things: one, to say to Medicaid that the settlor, or creator of the trust, no longer owns the assets. At the same time, the IRS must see that the settlor still owns these assets and, therefore, receives a basis step-up at death.

An experienced estate planning attorney will be needed to advise you and create a Medicaid Asset Preservation Trust to meet the Medicaid and IRS requirements.

Reference: Journal of Accountancy (Oc. 9, 2023) “Long-Term-Care planning using trusts”

Can I Protect My Elderly Parents?

Estate planning requires the ability to be realistic about current health and assets, while considering the inevitable changes to come. For adults with aging parents, having a well-thought out estate plan, regardless of the size of the estate, becomes more urgent as the time to use the documents draws closer. A recent article, “Accessing needs of aging parents,” from The News-Enterprise explains the steps adult children need to take to protect their parents.

There are four key factors to consider: medical needs, housing and care needs, finances and legal needs. All require candid, non-emotional assessments.

Start with medical, housing and care needs. Consider the next five years. Is it likely their medical condition may decline? How will their present home work, if they are unable to manage steps or need to sleep and toilet on the same level? If their home is not conducive for aging in place, will they consider moving to a better situation—or can they afford to make any changes?

Next, examine health and care needs. Do they have long-term care insurance or do they expect to apply for Medicaid? If one spouse will need memory care or one spouse dies, will the surviving spouse have the resources needed to remain in home and receive the care they need? An experienced estate planning attorney will be able to evaluate their financial situation with regard to becoming eligible for Medicaid, if this will be needed. There is a five-year look-back period for Medicaid, so advance action is necessary to protect assets.

Do they have any estate planning documents in place? Is there a will, and when was it prepared? Ask any estate planning attorney how many times seniors have told their children a will exists, only for the children to learn the will is forty years old, woefully out of date and declared invalid by the probate court. Deceased individuals may be listed as agents for Power of Attorney and Medical Power of Attorney. Funds left for heirs may no longer exist. Laws for power of attorney may not include required provisions as a result of changes to the law.

More complicated issues may exist. If appreciated real estate property has been deeded to loved ones to protect the property from nursing home costs, are the beneficiaries prepared to pay the resulting taxes? If deeded real estate property was intentionally left unrecorded, transferring property could become a legal quagmire.

The best solution is to have an experienced estate planning attorney meet with the parents, review any existing documents and prepare an updated set of documents to achieve the parent’s goals, protect them in case of medical emergencies and allow parents and children to gain the peace of mind of knowing they are ready for the future. This includes a will, power of attorney, health care power of attorney, HIPAA release, living will and, depending upon the situation, may also include trusts.

Reference: The Times-Enterprise (Nov. 5, 2022) “Accessing needs of aging parents”

What Is the Main Purpose of a Trust?

There are advantages and disadvantages of an irrevocable trust, and you’ll want to be fully informed before taking steps that may be costly to undo, explains the article “Understanding your trust” from The Sentinel. Once your home is deeded to an irrevocable trust, you won’t be able to make any changes without getting permission from the beneficiary or beneficiaries named in the trust. Your rights of ownership are transferred to the trust, when you deed it to the trust.

A separate legal agreement with the trustee, the person in charge of the trust, will be needed to give you a legal right to occupy the home also. Any changes could be made but will take time and could be costly. Changes can also only be made, if the beneficiaries agree.

There was a time when lenders inserted clauses into mortgages that any time a sale or transfer of the deed occurred, full payment of the mortgage would be due. This changed, and today the mortgage is not due just because of a change in the deed. However, it may be a challenge to refinance, if the home is held in an irrevocable trust.

For most people, the reason to put a home into an irrevocable trust is to prevent the home from being lost to a creditor, including protecting the home’s equity from the cost of nursing home care, during life or after death. In some states, like Pennsylvania, the state will initiate a collection action against the estate to recover the amount paid for the deceased homeowner’s nursing care costs.

The move to put a home into an irrevocable trust can work as long as the trust remains intact, and the homeowner does not apply for financial assistance for nursing home care for at least five years from the date that the deed was transferred as recorded in the courthouse.

If long-term care needs arise before that time, putting the home into an irrevocable trust may not serve its intended purpose.

There are some tax benefits from an irrevocable trust. If the homeowner lives at least one year after the home is deeded to the trust, in some states no inheritance taxes will be due on the home. Check with a local estate planning attorney to learn what the rules are in your state.

If the trust is prepared by an experienced elder law attorney, it is likely that the capital gain on the sale of the home by the trust after the homeowner’s death will be taxed based on the home’s value at the time of sale, rather than the value at the time it is placed into the trust or on the day of death.

If the home is the only asset in the trust, the taxpayer ID of the trust will be the homeowner’s Social Security number, and no annual tax return is required. If, however, other assets, particularly income-producing assets, are placed in the trust, then the trust needs to have its own EIN (a federal tax identification number) and annual tax returns will need to be paid. Taxes on a trust are normally at a higher rate than individual income rates.

Your estate planning attorney will explain the numerous strategies that can be used to protect your assets and your home from the high cost of long-term care. There are many Medicaid compliant techniques and tools, depending upon the situation of the individual and the family.

Reference: The Sentinel (April 23, 2021) “Understanding your trust”

How to Avoid Medicaid Estate Recovery

Medicaid is a government program that helps seniors and others pay for long term care. However, it’s not always free, explains the article “What Is Medicaid Estate Recovery?” from AOL.com. The Medicaid Estate Recovery Program (MERP) is used by states to recover costs from estates with funds. The goal of Medicaid estate recovery is to make the program affordable for the government, but it can have a severe impact on the beneficiaries of Medicaid recipients. An estate planning elder law attorney should be contacted, if you believe you or a loved one may need Medicaid.

Seniors are eligible for Medicare when they turn 65. This program pays for many healthcare expenses, but not for long-term care in a nursing home. Medicaid is used when someone does not have long term care insurance or enough money to pay for long-term care out of pocket. Medicaid can also be used for long-term or nursing home care, if steps have been taken to protect assets. This usually includes strategies, like trusts and Medicaid Asset Protection Trusts (MAPT).

A federal law passed in 1993 (the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act) requires states to attempt to seek reimbursement from a Medicaid beneficiary’s estate after they have died. Some of the costs that the state will try to recover include:

• Nursing home costs
• Home and community-based services
• Medical services received through a hospital where the recipient is a long-term care patient
• Prescription drug services for long-term care recipient

The recovery program lets Medicaid pursue any eligible assets owned by the estate. While this depends upon where you live, any assets that are part of the probate estate could be attached, including:

• Bank accounts
• Your home or other real estate
• Vehicles or other real property

In addition, some states allow Medicaid to recover assets that are not subject to probate, including jointly held accounts, Payable-On-Death (POD) bank accounts, real estate owned in joint tenancy with right of survivorship, living trusts and any other assets that the Medicaid recipient had a legal interest in.

An estate planning elder care attorney in your state will know what types of assets your state tends to pursue and will help you understand what can and cannot be used for Medicaid benefit recovery.

Note that while Medicaid cannot take the primary residence while the recipient is still living, they can place a lien on the home. If the recipient passes away and a beneficiary inherits the home, they will not be able to sell the property until the lien has been satisfied.

For beneficiaries, Medicaid recovery means a smaller inheritance. However, that’s not the only thing to be mindful of. There are laws known as “filial responsibility laws” that allow healthcare providers to sue the children of long-term care recipients to recover nursing care costs. This is not commonly done as of this writing, but the costs of COVID may change this in the near future.

Strategic planning can help you or loved ones avoid the financial impact of Medicaid estate recovery. If you are eligible and can afford to buy a long-term care policy, that may help to cover most of the cost of care. Another option is to remove as many assets from the probate process as possible. An estate planning attorney will be able to help you create a plan to protect your assets.

Reference: AOL.com (February 5, 2021) “What Is Medicaid Estate Recovery?”

Protect Your Estate from Nursing Home Costs

Nursing home care is expensive, costing between $12,000 to $20,000 per month, so most seniors should do all they can to prepare for this possibility. According to a recent article from the Times Herald-Record, “Elder Law Power of Attorney can save assets that would go to nursing home costs,” this is something that can be done even when entering a nursing home is imminent.

A Power of Attorney is used to name people, referred to as “agents,” to conduct legal and financial affairs, if we are incapacitated. Having this document is an important part of an estate plan, since it reduces or completely avoids the risk of your family having to go through guardianship proceedings, where a judge names a legal guardian to take over your affairs.

The guardian likely will be someone you have never met, who does not know you or your family. It’s always better to plan in advance, so you know who is going to be taking charge of your affairs.

Then there’s the Elder Law Power of Attorney, a stronger form of a Power of Attorney that includes unlimited gifting powers. Having this unlimited gifting power lets a single person who applies for Medicaid in a nursing home to protect their assets, by using a gift and loan strategy.

Here’s an example: Amy, who is single, can’t live on her own and even having home health care aides is not enough care anymore. She has $500,000 in assets and does not qualify for Medicaid to pay for her care. Medicaid will allow her to keep only $15,900.

One option is for Amy to spend down all of her money on nursing home costs, until all she has is $15,900. All of her savings will go to the nursing home, with very little left for her daughter, Ellen.

However, if Amy has an Elder Law Power of Attorney, a gift and loan strategy can protect her assets. Half of the money, $250,000, can go to Ellen as a gift under the unlimited gifting powers. The other half goes to Ellen as a loan, under a promissory note with a set rate of interest.

Any gifts made in the past five years, known as a “five year look back,” cause a penalty period. Amy will have to pay for the nursing home for about twenty months. Every month during that period, Ellen will pay Amy a monthly payment that, with her income, is used to pay the nursing home bill. At the end of the 20 months, Amy qualifies for Medicaid to pay for her care for the rest of her life, and Amy may keep the $250,000. Saving half of her assets by using the gift and loan strategy is sometimes called the “half a loaf is better than none” strategy.

With a Standard Power of Attorney, there are no unlimited gifting powers.

A Medicaid Asset Protection Trust (MAPT) created five or more years before Amy needed a nursing home could have saved her entire nest egg for Ellen.

Preplanning is always the better way to go. An elder law estate planning attorney is the best resource for determining what the best tools are to protect a nest egg if and when a person needs the care of a nursing home.

Many people make the mistake of thinking that it “won’t happen to me.” However, injuries and illnesses often accompany aging, and it is far better to plan for this eventuality in advance than waiting and hoping for the best.

DISCLAIMER: Medicaid planning is complex and the case hypothetical above with “Amy and Ellen” is provided for purposes of illustration. Whether this strategy would work for you or your loved ones depends on the laws of your state of residence given your unique circumstances. Consult with an experienced elder law attorney admitted to practice law in your state of residence before engaging in any Medicaid planning!

Reference: Times Herald-Record (Jan. 8, 2021) “Elder Law Power of Attorney can save assets that would go to nursing home costs”

Protect Assets from Medicaid Recovery

Medicaid is a government program used by Americans to pay for nursing home and long-term care. The Medicaid Estate Recovery Program (MERP) is used to recoup costs paid toward long term care, so that the program can be more affordable for the government, says the article “What is Medicaid Estate Recovery?” from kake.com. Beneficiaries of Medicaid recipients are often surprised to learn that this impacts them directly.

Medicare was created to help pay for healthcare costs of Americans once they reach age 65. It covers many different aspects of healthcare expenses, but not costs for long-term or nursing home care. That is the role of Medicaid.

Medicaid helps pay the costs of long-term care for aging seniors. It is used when a person has not purchased long-term health care insurance or does not have enough money to pay for long-term care out of their own funds.

Medicaid is also used by individuals who have taken steps to protect their assets using trusts or other estate planning tools.

The Medicaid Estate Recovery program allows Medicaid to be reimbursed for costs that include the costs of staying in a nursing home or other long-term care facility, home and community-based services, medical services received through a hospital when the person is a long-term care patient and prescription drug services for long-term care recipients.

When the recipient passes away, Medicaid is allowed to pursue assets from the estate. That often varies by state, but for the most part it means any assets that would be subject to the probate process after the recipient passes. That may include bank accounts, real estate, vehicles, or other real property.

In some states, recovery may be made from assets that are not subject to probate: jointly owned bank accounts between spouses, payable on death bank accounts, real estate owned in joint tenancy with right of survivorship, living trusts and any assets a Medicaid recipient has an interest in.

An estate planning attorney will know what assets Medicaid can use for recovery and how to protect the family from being financially devastated.

While it is true that Medicaid can’t take your home or assets before the recipient passes, it is legal for Medicaid to place a lien on the property. Let’s say your mother needs to move into a nursing home. Medicaid could place a lien on the property. If she dies and you inherit the home, you’ll have to satisfy the lien before you can sell the home.

Heirs need to anticipate inheriting a smaller estate. Medicaid eligibility assumes that recipients are low income or have few assets to pay for long term care. However, if parents are able to leave some amount of assets to their children, the recovery program will shrink those assets.

Strategic planning can be done in advance by the individual who may need Medicaid in the future. One way to do this is to purchase long-term care insurance, which is the strategy of personal responsibility. Another is removing assets from the probate process. Married couples can make that sure all assets are owned jointly with right of survivorship, or to purchase an annuity that transfers to the surviving spouse, when the other spouse passes away. An estate planning attorney can help create a Medicaid Asset Protection Trust, which may remove assets from being counted for eligibility.

Speak with an estate planning attorney to learn how to prepare for yourself or your parent’s future needs. The earlier the planning begins, the better chances of successfully protecting the family.

Reference: kake.com (Feb. 6, 2021) “What is Medicaid Estate Recovery?”

What Steps to Take when Dementia Begins

Covid-19 has made travelling more difficult, so holiday visits this year may not be the same triggering event they were in the past. However, even an online holiday visit can reveal a great deal of change, reports a recent article “Elder Care: When the children don’t notice” from The Sentinel.

An elderly spouse caring for another elderly spouse may not notice that their loved one’s needs have increased. Caregiving may have started as the spouse needing a reminder to take a shower on a regular basis. As dementia progresses, the spouse may not be able to shower by themselves.

This quickly becomes exhausting and unsafe. If one spouse suddenly does not recognize the other and perceives their spouse as an intruder, a dangerous situation may occur, repeatedly. It’s time to discuss this with the children, if they are not available to notice this decline in person.

People are often reluctant to tell out-of-town children about this problem because they don’t want the added stress of having the children come to the rescue and making decisions that may be overwhelming. The children may also think they can come out for a visit and fix everything in the space of a few days. It’s not an easy situation for anyone.

A starting point, especially when early-stage dementia has been diagnosed, is to get an estate plan in place immediately, while the person still has the capacity to sign legal documents. Anyone who is old enough for Medicare (and anyone else, for that matter) needs to have an updated last will and testament, durable financial power of attorney for financial matters and a health care power of attorney, including a living will.

The financial power of attorney document will be the most practical because the family will be able to access financial accounts and make decisions without having to petition the court to appoint a guardian. A professional guardian might be appointed, which is extremely expensive and there have been situations where the professional guardian makes decisions the family does not want. A family member who can act under the power of attorney may be a much better solution for all concerned.

Speak with your estate planning attorney to be sure the POA permits wealth preservation. If it contains the phrase “limited gifting,” you want to discuss this and likely change it. You should also be sure that there is a secondary and even a third backup agent, in case there are any issues with the people named as POA.

Spouses typically have wills that leave everything to their spouse, and then equally among their children, if the spouse dies first. However, what if your spouse is in a nursing home when you die? The cost of nursing home care can quickly exhaust all funds. If any family member is receiving government benefits and then inherits directly, they could lose important government benefits. These are all matters to discuss with your estate planning attorney.

Have a conversation with your children about your healthcare advance directive. It’s not an easy conversation, but when the children know what their parents want concerning end-of-life care decisions, it relieves an enormous burden for all. Get specific—do you want a feeding tube to keep you alive? What about if the only thing keeping them alive is a heart-lung machine? Better to have these conversations now, than in the hospital when emotions are running high.

Another important document today is the HIPAA release. This permits healthcare providers to discuss and share information about your loved one’s medical care. Without it, even close family members are not legally permitted to be part of the conversation about health care, lab test results, etc.

Reference: The Sentinel (Dec. 11, 2020) “Elder Care: When the children don’t notice”

Planning for Nursing Home Expenses

The question raised in the article “Fact or Fiction: I Can Protect My Assets from a Nursing Home with a Revocable Trust” from New Hampshire Business Review is frequency asked, and the reason for it is understandable. Any form of long-term home care is costly and can quickly decimate a lifetime of savings. There are ways to protect assets, but a revocable trust is not one of them.

There are some reasons why a person might find a revocable trust attractive. For one thing, if the grantor (the person who creates the trust and is also the trustee (i.e., the person in charge of the trust)), there is no loss of control. It is as if you still own the assets that are in the trust. However, when you die, the assets in the trust don’t go through the probate process. Instead, they go directly to the beneficiaries named in the trust documents. A revocable trust also lets you make specific provisions for beneficiaries and beneficiaries with special needs.

There is a trust that can be used to protect assets from the cost of long-term care. It is the irrevocable trust, which must be properly prepared by an estate planning attorney and done in a timely fashion: five years before the person needs to go to a nursing home.

The difference is in the name: the irrevocable trust is irrevocable. Once it is created, you (the grantor) may not change it. Once an asset is placed in the trust, you don’t own it. The trust is the owner. You can’t change your mind. The grantor may also not serve as the trustee of the trust.

You have to be prepared to give up complete control of the assets that go into the trust.

Some people think simply by handing over their assets in the trust to their children, they’ve solved everything. However, there are problems. If your children are sued or run into debt problems, that lifetime of saving which is now in their control is also subject to creditors or claims. If you need to enter a nursing home within five years of your handing over the assets, you also won’t be eligible for Medicaid.

The best course of action is to meet with an estate planning attorney and discuss your overall estate plan. You should have a frank conversation about your wishes, what kind of a legacy you want to leave behind and your bigger picture for the world after you’ve passed. The attorney will help work out a plan that will protect you, your spouse, your assets and your family.

Remember that an estate plan is not a one-and-done document. Every three or four years, or as “life happens” and changes occur in your life, you should touch base with your attorney. A new family member by marriage, birth or adoption, may call for some changes to your estate plan. It might also be affected by the sadder events of life; death, divorce, or a significant health change. All require a phone call and a discussion to ensure that your estate plan still achieves your goals and protects those you love.

Reference: New Hampshire Business Review (July 30, 2020) “Fact or Fiction: I Can Protect My Assets from a Nursing Home with a Revocable Trust”

Quirk in Medicare System’s Observation Status

There’s a troubling quirk in the Medicare system that occurs when older patients are hospitalized and instead of being officially admitted, they are placed on “observation status” reports the article “Caught Paying for Rehab Due to Observation Status? Medicare May Owe You” from The National Law Journal.

Observation status originally was meant to serve as a temporary status for people who were receiving medical care and tests in a hospital setting until they were either sent home or a diagnosis was made, and they were officially admitted.

However, in the past 10 years or so, the number of patients in hospitals deemed to be in observation status has increased enormously, even when patients have received a diagnosis and their doctors have admitted them to the hospital. This is a direct result of the Medicare claims review process, where hospitals risk not being paid because of inpatient services being billed without documents of certain diagnoses and levels of care.

The hospital seeks to protect itself, by designating a patient as observation status. There’s no downside to the hospital, since this is covered by Medicare, just under Part B, rather than Part A.

However, for the patient, it’s not that simple. First, the denial of Part A inpatient coverage means that the patient has to pay for each and every deductible and copay for each service. Prescription drugs received while the patient is in the hospital are billed separately and aren’t included under the Part A inpatient payment.

 It gets worse. Medicare coverage for post-hospital care is denied or extremely limited for observation status patients. Medicare only covers rehab costs in a facility, if the patient was admitted to the hospital for at least three days.

Observation status days do not count towards those qualifying days. It doesn’t matter if the treating physician had the patient admitted to the hospital, because hospitals can change the status of the patient retroactively.

Until recently, there was no recourse for patients. However, a recent class action suit in Connecticut may see that begin to change. A federal judge held that Medicare beneficiaries whose hospital stays were changed to observation status may appeal to Medicare for reimbursement of their payments to rehabilitation facilities. As a result of Alexander v. Azar, patients have the right to recover payments for their nursing home rehabilitation stays.

Patients whose doctors placed them on observation status still are not permitted to appeal.

Speak with your elder law estate planning attorney, if this scenario applies to you or family member.

Reference: The National Law Review (May 26, 2020) “Caught Paying for Rehab Due to Observation Status? Medicare May Owe You”

Your Children Wish You Had an Estate Plan

It is the adult children who are in charge of aging parents when they need long-term care. They are also the ones who settle estates when parents die. Even if they can’t always come out and tell you, the recent article, “Why your children wish you had an Elder Law Estate Plan” from the Times Herald-Record spells out exactly why an elder law estate plan is so important for your loved ones.

Avoid court proceedings while living. In a perfect world, everyone over age 18 will have an advance directive, including a power of attorney, a health care proxy, and a living will. These documents appoint others to make financial, legal, and medical decisions, in case of incapacity. Without them, the children will have to get involved with time-consuming, expensive guardianship proceedings, where a judge appoints a legal guardian to make these decisions. Your life is turned over to a court-appointed guardian, instead of your children or another person of your choosing.

Avoid court proceedings after you die. If you die and assets are in your name alone, then your estate will go through probate, a court proceeding that can be time consuming and costly. Not having any assets in trusts leaves your kids open to the possibility of wills being challenged, disputes among family members and litigation that can drag on for years.

Wills in probate court are public documents. Trusts are private documents. Do you really want a stranger to access your will and learn about your assets?

An elder law estate plan also plans for the possibility of long-term care and costs. Nursing home care costs can run between $12,000—$18,000 per month. If you don’t have long-term care insurance, you can create a Medicaid Asset Protection Trust (MAPT) that protects assets in the trust from nursing home costs, once the assets are in the trust for five years. The MAPT also protects assets from homecare provided by Medicaid, called “community” Medicaid, once the assets are in the trust for 30 months under a new rule that starts on October 1, 2020.

The “elder law power of attorney” has unlimited gifting powers that could save about half of a single person’s assets from the cost of nursing homes. This can be done on the eve of needing nursing home care, but it is always better to do this planning in advance.

Having a plan in place decreases stress and anxiety for adult children. They are likely busy with their own lives, working, caring for their children and coping in a challenging world. When a plan is in place, they don’t have to start learning about Medicaid law, navigating their way through the court system, or wondering why their parents did not take advantage of the time they had to plan properly.

You probably don’t want your children remembering you as the parents who left a financial and legal mess behind for the them to clean up. Speak with an elder law estate planning attorney to create a plan for your future. Your children will appreciate it.

Reference: Times Herald-Record (May 23, 2020) “Why your children wish you had an Elder Law Estate Plan”