At a recent national gathering, estate planning attorneys focused on how to protect assets for Medicaid purposes. More specifically, if you or your spouse needed to go into a nursing home, would your beneficiaries OR the government benefit from your hard work throughout your life?
Nursing Home Costs and Medicaid Planning
The federal government wants a bigger piece of the pie. But there are legal strategies to preserve some or all of your assets from the cost of nursing home care. Without proper planning, however, you will likely lose the bulk of your savings.
The key to effective planning is to do it while you are still healthy and can take a thoughtful approach to protect your assets. Planning in a crisis may dramatically limit your options and opportunities. For most individuals, the objective is to protect savings (by avoiding paying them to a nursing home) while simultaneously qualifying for nursing home Medicaid benefits. This can be legally accomplished within the rules of Medicaid eligibility.
Life-Changing Events May Warrant Modifications
Beyond nursing home concerns, we know that life-changing events often signal a corresponding change in your financial circumstances and/or may drive the need to revise your estate plan.
For example, you may have bought or sold a home, celebrated a marriage or birth of a grandchild, incurred an unexpected financial burden, experienced the death of a loved one, or had other changes in your personal circumstances.
In most cases, it is a good idea to review your estate planning documents every five to ten years.
Asset Protection Strategies and Current Tax Developments
Whether you are thinking about Medicaid planning for nursing home care, revisiting your estate plan due to life-changing events, or just making sure that you are taking full advantage of the most recent developments in the law, the estate planning attorneys at BRCSM invite you to review your current estate plan.
We will discuss your particular situation and how you can benefit from the latest asset protection strategies and estate tax laws.
We can help in the following areas:
- Review your present wills, trusts, durable powers of attorney for both health and finance.
- Update your beneficiaries, executors, agents for your durable powers of attorney and trusts.
- Avoid probate.
- Preserve assets from nursing home expenses. It’s never too late to save some of your assets from being spent on nursing home bills.
- Create a special-needs plan for those beneficiaries who may require special help in the future.
- Ensure that you are taking full advantage of the most current federal and state laws and regulations.
Our estate planning attorneys remain abreast of the current regulations and estate tax thresholds to preserve the wealth and protect the assets of our clients by minimizing potential tax liability and costs of administration. Learn more about our estate planning practice here. Or contact Partner Joseph Recupero here or via phone at 401.453.2300.