One of the greatest challenges our clients face is how to protect their families from the rising cost of long-term care. They’re right to be concerned.<\/p>\n
The median cost of a private nursing home room grew to $97,455 a year, an increase of 5.5 percent over 2016, according to the 2017 Cost of Care survey by Genworth<\/a>. For semi-private rooms, the median cost is $85,775 in 2017, up 4.4 percent over last year.<\/p>\n Since the average length of stay in a nursing home is about three years, such high monthly bills can quickly drain the life savings of a client. A family with a loved one in a nursing home would need about $3 million in income-producing assets to avoid drawing on the principal.<\/p>\n That’s why it’s important for those of you “non-senior aged” clients to start strategizing now to determine how you intend to pay for long-term care in your senior years.<\/p>\n 3 Ways to Pay<\/p>\n Typically, there are three choices in how to pay for long-term care:<\/p>\n \u2022 The patient pays for the expenses out-of-pocket. Medicaid assists low-income seniors who need nursing care. However, medical costs have risen so dramatically that even middle-class patients can’t afford to pay out-of-pocket without wiping out their bank accounts. About 65 percent of nursing home patients receive Medicaid benefits, according to the American Association of Retired Persons.<\/p>\n Consider a Medicaid Asset Protection Trust<\/p>\n For those of you who choose Options 1 or 2, we can show you how to help protect your investments and how to insulate your assets from creditors and lawsuits through pre-planning with trusts.<\/p>\n Some of you may wish to place assets into a customized trust that can be used to help you “pre-qualify” for Medicaid and be protected at the same time. You can receive income from assets in the trust and have a legal “back door” to the principal if you ever need it.<\/p>\n Not Poor, Not Rich Either<\/p>\n If you are more likely to choose Option 3, then you should understand how eligibility works. The rules are strict, but they are not impossible to meet.<\/p>\n Income is an issue. This varies from state to state, but typically the limit is about $2,200 per month. In addition, Medicaid reviews an applicant’s financial records for the five years previous to their application to reveal any uncompensated transfers – money or assets given away for free.<\/p>\n What if you earn $2,500 per month or $3,500, or $4,500? These amounts are not enough to pay for care but will disqualify someone from eligibility.<\/p>\n State by state, there are strategies that can help people with too much income to qualify for Medicaid. Sometimes these are called a Qualified Income Trust or a Miller Trust.<\/p>\n There are a variety of tools available for preplanning to cover the costs of long-term care, and as qualified estate planning advisors we encourage you to act now rather than wait.<\/p>\n If you wish to know more about which asset protection strategies would be best for you as you prepare to pre-plan for long-term care, contact us.<\/p>\n We hope this information is useful to you and helps you and your families. If you have a specific case or a question, please don’t hesitate to call our office.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of the greatest challenges our clients face is how to protect their families from the rising cost of long-term care. They’re right to be concerned. The median cost of a private nursing home room grew to $97,455 a year, an increase of 5.5 percent over 2016, according to the 2017 Cost of Care survey… Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,99],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-long-term-care-planning","category-nursing-home-care"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t
\n\u2022 Long-Term Care Insurance
\n\u2022 Medicaid (MediCal in California)<\/p>\n