Practice Areas
Elder and Disability Law
Aging clients and their families face troubling issues when confronted with the possibility of financing long-term care due to their own disabling condition or that of a loved one. As people live longer and longer due to antibiotics and over-all advances in medicine, the likelihood that a family member will require nursing home care or significant and costly assistance at home increases. And once in a nursing home, people tend to live much longer than they did in the past.
Unfortunately, payment for nursing home care is not part of the basic entitlement package in the United States. If one needs nursing home care, one either has to pay for this cost oneself (privately or with long term care insurance), or qualify for Medicaid to pay for it. The average cost of nursing home care in the United States is between $4,000 and $10,000 per month depending on where one lives. Medicare, the health insurance that comes with Social Security, pays for only up to 100 days of skilled nursing home care following a hospitalization. Medicaid, on the other hand, is a welfare program for health care expenses that does pay for nursing home expenses. To receive Medicaid coverage, the nursing home resident is limited to $2,000 in countable assets and his or her spouse (the "community spouse") is limited to $92,760 in assets not including the home (as of January 1, 2004). Medicaid has additional rules penalizing the transfer (or giving away) of assets, imposing a lien on the estate of decedent for whom it has provided benefits, etc. Therefore, without planning, a family can face financial devastation in the event of nursing home placement. There may be insufficient funds for the community spouse, the inheritance that parents intended to leave to their children can be consumed by nursing home payments, disabled or dependent children can be left without the supplementary support they need, etc.
Fortunately, there are planning techniques that competent elder law attorneys can utilize with their clients to protect against these dire consequences. Credible and legal planning strategies can be employed and the proper use of these strategies can help preserve precious resources for the community spouse and next generation. The design and implementation of these strategies as well as servicing my clients other basic estate planning needs for wills, trusts, durable powers of attorney, health care proxies or other appropriate medical directives, transfers of real estate and estate tax planning make up the core of my practice. I also have expertise in representing families who have disabled children who are dependent on public benefit programs like SSI. Once again, protection of these benefits requires special planning and care must be taken to insure that the parents' estate plans do not make their disabled children ineligible for the benefits they need. The utilization of "supplemental" or "special needs trusts" can protect eligibility for these critical programs
