A Long Term Care Mess (Part 1)
Most people don’t prepare well for the possibility of needing long term care. This story is no different but with the right steps, guidance and a lot of work this story shows what can be accomplished. Mary called us after her dad died. She wasn’t calling because she needed help with
New Medicaid and VA Figures for 2020 (Part 1)
The Social Security Administration announced last month the cost of living adjustment for 2020. This adjustment is also applied to many of the government programs besides Social Security, that affect our clients’ lives. So here it is. Following an increase last year of 2.8%, this year the increase is smaller, only
Protecting the Home – Part 2
A continuation of last week’s topic concerns protecting the home when applying for Medicaid. I explained that John’s daughter, Amy should not have to sell her Dad’s home and spend down the proceeds before qualifying for Medicaid if Amy is living in the home and she intends to bring him
Protecting the Home – Part 1
I received a call last week which again highlights the risk of handling a Medicaid application on your own. As I often say, the application may appear to be easy but you never know when you’ll run into an issue or problem. When that happens it is important to have
A Family Theft – Part 4
In this week’s post I give you the conclusion to Joe’s saga involving his sister Sophie’s Medicaid application. As I explained in last week’s post, things didn’t go according to our expectation. When we filed a civil lawsuit seeking to collect the amounts Mary took from Sophie I expected that
A Family Theft – Part 3
Last year I wrote about a family theft and its implications for Medicaid eligibility (Blog posts on 9/24/18 and 10/1/18). To summarize, we needed to apply for Medicaid for Sophie, who could no longer live at home but now needed nursing home care. She had lived with her sister Mary,
Right Way and the Wrong Way to Help Out Parents (Part 2)
In last week’s post I was explaining the wrong way for children to chip in financially to help their parents. The wrong way can cause ineligibility periods for Medicaid and VA benefits. It can also eliminate the ability of the parents to repay the children when they
Getting and Then Keeping Medicaid- Part 3
This week’s post is the last of 3 on the danger of losing Medicaid after having been approved. In both of our cases the Qualified Income Trust was the cause and each time it happened during the annual redetermination process. As I explained last week
Getting Medicaid and then Keeping it (Part 2)
In my post last week, I started to tell you about the dangers of losing Medicaid benefits after qualifying for them. That’s because you cannot put things on “autopilot”. One reason is that getting a Medicaid approval only lasts for one year. The State requires recipients to go through
Getting and Keeping Medicaid – Part 1
In this week’s post I focus back on Medicaid. As I often tell people, every year it seems that securing Medicaid approvalsis increasingly difficult. There are more ways to be tripped up by the complex and often confusing rules and regulations. Many of the problems stem from keeping Medicaid