Video Summary

Can I pay a family member to be my caregiver?  The answer is yes you can and it’s called a personal services contract and is used to help qualify people for Medicaid.  If you would like to see about qualifying for Medicaid I suggest that you give my office a call and ask to speak to Jaleh or Thomas Mitchell.  They do elder law and are familiar with and can provide you with a personal services contract.  It’s important that you do sign a contract for paying a relative for your personal care because if you do not, and then when you pass away, they will have a difficult time receiving any compensation from your estate for their services because they are not liquidated. We do not know how much you have agreed to pay them and furthermore it is presumed, if they are a family member that they were doing it for love rather than for money.

So, if you would like to set up a personal services contract, give my office a call and ask to set up an appointment with Jaleh and/or Mr. Mitchell and they will be glad to prepare the contract for you.

Give us a call at 847-2288.

Video Summary

Good afternoon! My name is Tom Mitchell. I’m one of the partners at Waller

& Mitchell. We’re located in beautiful downtown New Port Richey, and I’m an

Elder law attorney.

One of the things that I frequently get asked to do is to help people who have a senior family member who has declined in either mental or physical health and has to go into a nursing home, and the family wants to know, is there any way we can preserve some or as much of their assets as we can and still have them go into the nursing home and be taken care of properly?

And, in fact, there is a Federal/State program that provides the nursing home care for individuals who are indigent. It’s called Medicaid, the Institutional Care Program.

Being a welfare-style program, it does have asset and income limitations. For a single person the asset limit is $2,000.00.  And for a married couple the asset limit is $120,000.00.  For the income limit for a single person who is in a nursing home it’s approximately $2,250.00. For the individual in a married situation and the individual is living at home, they can have as much income as they want.

And so there are some assets that are not counted. The house is not counted. A car is not counted. Retirement accounts are not counted. So there are some things that we can do, however, to help transfer the other assets that are accounted against Medicaid eligibility.

The only thing that you can’t do is you can’t give it away. If you give the money to the kids or the grand-kids then the person going in the nursing home will be disqualified for Medicaid eligibility for a period of time that is related directly to the amount of money that was given away.

So if you want to know how to do any of these things, go ahead and give us a call. I’m Tom Mitchell at Waller & Mitchell. We’re at 5332 Main Street in New Port Richey.

Thanks!

Video Summary

Good afternoon, I’m Tom Mitchell. I’m one of the partners here at Waller & Mitchell.  We’re located in downtown New Port Richey, Florida. I’m going to speak to you this afternoon for a few minutes about Medicaid. Medicaid is a joint federal/state program which provides for the medical care for a variety of individuals who are needy. It’s a welfare stop program so it does have asset and income qualifications. 

The first group of people that it provides benefits to are families with children, and those benefits are limited to those individuals who make less than 185% of the federal poverty limit. Currently this year, for a family of four, that’s about $40,000 so if they’re in a family of four, mother and three children, father and mother and two children and make less than $40,000 they would qualify for Medicaid. A family also can be more than just a mother and/or father. It can include people such as grandparents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews, so it’s a wider-ranging program.

The next group of people who can qualify for Medicaid are the elderly, those over the age 65 – aged, as they’re referred to in the federal regulations. So if you’re up there and you’re 66 and you don’t think of yourself as aged, just take my word for it, that’s what the federal regulations say. If you’re over 65 and you are needy, that is you have income that is less than $710 a month, you can qualify for a program called Supplemental Security Income.  If you receive at least $1 of Supplemental Security Income, you are entitled to Medicaid benefits and you can have your health insurance paid for by the government. 

The other group of people that we frequently encounter that requires Medicaid services are the elderly who are in need of nursing home coverage. This program provides that the state will pay for the nursing home care of an individual who is impoverished. Now this is the federal government and these are the people that pay $2,000 for coffee pots so they have a little bit different idea about what constitutes impoverished. For a single individual it’s pretty straightforward. They can’t have any more than $2,000 in the bank and can’t make any more than $2,135 a month. If they do make more than $2,135 a month, we can prepare a special trust to qualify them in any event, and if you need that, please contact me. I’ll be glad to do that for you. 

In the situation with a married couple, the rules are that we don’t want the couple to be in poverty. If we know that one of them is going to be in the nursing home, so they’re called the nursing home spouse. The other spouse is called the community spouse because they’re still living at home in the community, and in that situation, the community spouse is entitled to have $116,550 of assets exclusive of the house and the car. The spouse who’s in the nursing home, however, can only have $2,000 and can’t have income over the $2,135 that I mentioned a moment ago. 

If you meet those qualifications, the government will pay for the nursing home care of an individual who requires it. There are some ways to plan and to qualify sooner rather than later and this is something that we do do at Waller & Mitchell. If you need this service, please feel free to contact me. Again, my name is Tom Mitchell. I’m one of the partners at Waller & Mitchell. Our telephone number is 727-847-2288. 

Thank you.

Video Summary

Good afternoon.  My name is Tom Mitchell.  I’m a partner with the law firm of Waller & Mitchell.  We’re located at 5332 Main Street in Downtown New Port Richey, Florida.  I’m an elder law attorney, which means that I do wills, trusts, estates, powers of attorney, living wills, healthcare surrogates, will and trust administration, public benefits qualifications, asset protection, guardianship work.  All of those things pertain to the elder law area.

It frequently comes up in my practice that we have a family that has a senior member who has to go to a nursing home.  Either they’re in the nursing home now, or they’re going to be going in the next few weeks, and the family wants to try and get the individual qualified for public assistance.

There are several federal and state programs that will pay for the nursing home care of an individual who is indigent.  Now, indigency is defined somewhat differently under these federal regulations than you and I might think.

Basically, a single individual can have up to $2,000.00 in assets and get $2,025 a month in income.  For a married couple, the person who’s living at home, who we call the “community spouse,” can have $115,000.00 in cash assets, plus the house and the car.  And the institutionalized spouse, the person in the nursing home, can only have $2,000.00.

So the problem is: what do we do if the individual is a single person, and they’re only entitled to have $2,000.00, but they have $100,000.00?  Or maybe it’s a married couple, and they’re entitled to have $115,000.00, and they have $200,000.00.  What do we do about that extra money, to try and get the person qualified for the Medicaid Institutional Care Program benefit, yet still get as much money as possible down to the junior generation?

Well, there’s a technique that we call a Lifetime Personal Services Contract.  This comes about because even though it’s your parent, and you might provide care for them and provide management of their medical and personal needs for nothing, that isn’t the law.  You’re not required to do that.  And so the only thing, under the Medicaid regulations, you can’t do is give money away.

So you can’t give the money away.  So what do we do?  We sign a contract with one of our children that they will manage our affairs for the rest of our life, and we’re going to transfer money to them now in satisfaction of that obligation.  The next question is: “Well, how much money can we transfer?”

And in doing that, we have a calculation that has worked with the Medicaid authorities for many years.  Basically, what you do is – you compute the person’s life expectancy.  There are tables to do that.  You figure out how many hours per month you think that you’re going to be providing these services.  You figure out the rate that you’re going to charge.

And currently, in this area, we use the rate that the courts allow for family member guardians.  And doing that, you can come up with a number.  And that number is the amount of money that can be transferred from the senior generation to the junior generation now, and not disqualify the individual for Medicaid purposes for having made a gift.

So if you’d like to investigate this, please give me a call.  This is Tom Mitchell.  I’m at 727-847-2288.

Video Summary

How do I protect my home from nursing homes?  Well, this is a question I get asked quite often in that nursing homes do not take your home away from you.  Now, this is Florida specific, in that your home is considered your homestead and cannot be attached by any of your creditors.  But a nursing home is going to require payment for you to stay there, and if you have to be in a nursing home, you do need skilled nursing care.  So the question is: how do we pay the nursing home if you don’t have to sell your house?  Well, that comes in as far as applying for Medicaid, and you can make application for Medicaid provided that you meet certain asset tests and income tests and your homestead property does not count as far as your assets are concerned.

So if you’re concerned about your skilled nursing care and nursing homes taking your home away from you, you don’t need to worry about that.  However, it might be well to do some planning as far as Medicaid planning and qualifying or being qualified to get assistance through Medicaid for your skilled nursing care.

If you’d like to do some Medicaid planning, give me a call at 727-847-2288.