Alzheimer’s is a disease that affects everybody it touches—husbands, wives, children and grandchildren—they all bear witness to their loved one’s slow demise. Sadly, emotional stress is not the only stress that accompanies Alzheimer’s disease; those loved ones serving as caretakers may carry a huge amount of financial stress as well. The cost of caring for an Alzheimer’s patient can run anywhere from $64 a day to over a $100,000 a year, and because Alzheimer’s disease can be such a long-lasting disease (a person can suffer from Alzheimer’s for up to 20 years) the costs of care can end up being…
Emergency plans required by the government often lack specific steps such as coordinating with local authorities, notifying relatives or even pinning name tags and medication lists to residents in an evacuation, according to the findings. That means the plans may not be worth the paper they're written on states the USA Today Nearly seven years after Hurricane Katrina's devastation of New Orleans exposed the vulnerability of nursing homes, serious shortcomings persist. "We identified many of the same gaps in nursing home preparedness and response," investigators from the inspector general's office of the Health and Human Services Department wrote in the…
Medicare does not pay for long-term care, except for 100 days of rehabilitation in a nursing home. Nursing home care falls primarily to Medicaid, the jointly funded state and federal program. The program now is shouldering 40% of the country's long-term-care spending, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. To be eligible for Medicaid in Maryland, can have no more than $2,500 in cash and investments. (Spouses are allowed to keep a home, a car and up to approximately $110,000.) In the past, regulators looked at any gifts you made up to three years before applying for Medicaid. However, in 2006,…
A U.S. bankruptcy court finds that a woman who was contractually bound through a nursing home admissions agreement to apply for Medicaid benefits on her husband's behalf and failed to do so cannot discharge the debt owed to the nursing home through bankruptcy. In re Plybon (U.S. Bankr. E.D. Ky., No. 11–10146, March 9, 2012). When Glenna Plybon admitted her husband to a nursing home, she signed an admissions agreement as the responsible party. The agreement stated that Mrs. Plybon was required to pay a co-insurance amount and apply for Medicaid benefits on Mr. Plybon's behalf. Mrs. Plybon applied for…
At the Elder Law Office of David Wingate, LLC we assist clients who are faced with the possible placement of a spouse or parent in a nursing home. We counsel clients in navigating the complex and confusing Medicaid rules and regulations which pertain to nursing home care. Consequently, we assist in long term care planning to best situate your loved one for possible placement in a nursing home. Furthermore, we aid and counsel them in securing maximum financial protection and in preserving assets for the spouse who will remain at home and in applying for Medicaid eligibility. We also help…
Planning for assisted living costs should be at the top of your aging parent’s mind, or your mind. Because nursing home, assisted living, and adult day care costs are constantly increasing. As stated in the MetLife Mature Market Institute’s annual survey the cost of these types of long-term care have increased by 5.6 percent since the previous year. A private room in a nursing home averaged $87,000 a year and adult day programs cost $42,000 a year. Assisted living costs increase as your parents require additional care. Therefore, facilities can charge hundreds more a month for bathing, incontinence care, and…
Community Spouse, Community Spouse Resource Allowance (Minimum and Maximum), Monthly Maintenance Needs Allowance (Minimum and Maximum), Penalty Divisor, Resource Limit, Exempt and non-Exempt Resources — should you care what these terms are? Well, if you're part of a married couple and you're concerned about the possible need for nursing home care for you and/or your spouse, you should. The option for paying for the nursing home are discussed in our previous article “Who will pay for the nursing Home?” Let's start first with the average monthly cost of nursing home care is approximately $10,000 per month, i.e. $120,000 per year….
Unfortunately, most people do not plan for the nursing home, until the crisis occurs. As an elder care attorney I see this situation time and again. Therefore, it is important to educate my clients on the options they have available. The nursing home is a strong possibility for most Americans. People are now living longer than they ever have before. Consequently, for most they cannot care for themselves. Therefore, you will need some form of long-term care, usually, the nursing home. We, if the need occurs, help you plan for how to make this possibility happen. Medicare does not pay…
Medicaid eligibility rules are extremely complex and confusing, and impossible to understand without legal assistance. The United States Supreme Court has called the Medicaid laws “an aggravated assault on the English language, resistant to attempts to understand it.” Schweiker v. Gray Panthers, 453 U.S. 34, 43 (1981). Additionally, the United States Court of Appeals for our own Fourth Circuit (just below the U.S. Supreme Court), in a case arising out of Virginia, has called the Medicaid Act one of the “most completely impenetrable texts within human experience” and “dense reading of the most tortuous kind.” Rehab. Association of Virginia v. Kozlowski,…
Pursuant to the applicable provisions of the Federal Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA 2005), the look back period for Medicaid is five years (60 months). That federal statute requires that any uncompensated transfer that occurred during the relevant look back period will cause a penalty period with regard to the receipt of Medicaid benefits. The penalty period is the amount of the uncompensated transfer ( say gifts of $68,000)divided by the state's reimbursement rate (Maryland is $6,800). The result is ten (10) months that will constitute the penalty period. The penalty period begins in the month in which the…
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