These financial advisors who are not accredited by the VA and are often offering legal advice and thereby violating unauthorized practice of law rules, promise to reposition a claimant’s assets (generally buying a financial product such as an annuity) to make the veteran appear impoverished and eligible for the VA Benefit.

Well, great, they are now VA qualified, right?

Well, sometimes yes, but there are other concerns.  First, often times all their advice is doing is crumbling the veterans’ financial worth and nest egg while lining the advisors’ pockets with lucrative sales commissions.  Oftentimes, the “planning” often leads to trouble when veterans transition to the Medicaid program because of the five year look back period.  Medicaid has a five year look back period, while the VA benefit does not.

In my own office I’ve had families of veterans who have came to me after getting hooked by these outfits (who sometimes even work with attorneys), who maneuvered all of their assets around but never even filed the VA application as promised.

As a VA accredited elder law attorney this saddens me that people are taking advantage of our veterans with this practice.

As a Michigan elder care counselor,  I am helping Michigan boomers and seniors protect their nest egg from many of these concerns with proper planning.

Asset protection is a growing area of concern for many clients, and we’re looking at ways to protect seniors and boomer’s retirement nest egg from the devastating cost of long-term care planning.

Consider the cost of nursing home care averaging up to $10,000 per month.  If your loved one is in a nursing home for any length of time, how would you as the healthy spouse live knowing that your life savings and retirement nest egg were going to pay the cost of long-term care.

There is a better way.

Allow us to assist you in protecting your retirement nest egg from the devastating cost of long-term care.

Medicaid and Medicare participating nursing homes are not obligated to make one of their beds available to any new potential resident.  If they have a current Medicare resident who is/becomes edible for Medicaid coverage of their long-term care during their stay, they can’t discharge or transfer simply because they’d rather “reserve” their dually-certified beds for future higher-reimbursed Medicare admissions.  Declining to admit a Medicaid-eligible applicant to a dually-certiied bed in the hopes of filling it with a yet to be identified Medicare eligible admission, whether we like it or not, remains permissible.

We have a state on this at MCL 333.21718(2), which reads: “(2) As a condition of skilled nursing facility certification, a nursing home shall obtain concurrent certification under title 19 [Medicaid]…for each bed which is certified to provide skilled care under title 18 [Medicare]. Skilled care certification shall not be renewed unless the requirements of this subsection are met.”

However, given this, nursing homes are still trying to argue that there are “no nursing home beds available” to current residents, at times.

John is a single veteran who is living in an assisted living community (could  be Sunrise, American House, Arden Courts, Waltonwood, Baldwin House, Etc…) and needs the protective environment provided by the assisted living community due to his Alzheimer’s and dementia symptoms.  John has over $300,000 in assets remaining, plus still owns his house which could be located in Livonia or Troy, let’s say.

John’s daughter has called us because the administrator at the assisted living knows how important it is to bring in as many possible resources as possible to help pay the ongoing long-term care costs and to be able to stay in the facility.

After meeting, we put together a long-term care plan for John that will call of creation of a specialized type of trust, a Veterans Asset Protection Trust.  We then fund some of the assets, along with the home into the trust.

What this allows us to do is qualify John for the Aid & Attendance veterans benefit in the short term, brining in an additional $1,703 per month to pay the long-term care costs.  In the long-term what this long-term care elder law planning accomplishes is helping protect John’s assets from Michigan Medicaid estate recovery, especially the family home.

By doing this elder care planning we bring in an additional $1,703 per month tax free for the rest of John’s life, presumably.  Then we also protect John’s resources from Medicaid spend down and Medicaid estate recovery.

If you’re a Michigan resident caring for a veteran or surviving spouse of a veteran who is facing on-going long-term care costs, please give our elder care law firm a call to discuss how we can assist your family by offering peace of mind in navigating this often confusing long-term care legal maze.

The article continues:

Lead researcher Christopher Callahan, M.D., said this finding runs counter to a common belief that such residents typically die in facilities. He added that “a better understanding of the relationships between sites of care for older adults with dementia is fundamental to building better models of care for these vulnerable elders.”

As a Michigan Veterans Benefits lawyer, the Aid & Attendance benefit is a great resource to bring in to help veterans and their surviving spouses with the ongoing long-term care costs associated with in-home care.

Other than Veterans Benefits, which are a great planning tool if available, there are really only three ways to pay for long-term care.  That is, you can private pay, you can use long-term care insurance, or you can turn to the Medicaid program.  In previous posts, I’ve outlined the issues that are popping up with looking to long-term care insurance as a way to pay for long-term care costs. So, more and more people are looking to Michigan Medicaid.

So, if you’re only allowed to keep $2,000 in countable assets, what does that mean for the family home, the primary residence.  Well, the family home is probably going to be a non-countable or exempt asset.  What this means, is that if a Medicaid applicant were to apply for Medicaid, the house would not have to be “spent down,” assuming the home was in the applicant’s name (not a revocable living trust).

So the house is protected and all is well, right?  Not so fast.  How are you going to pay the expenses for the house?  Who’s going to keep the house up, mow the lawn, etc?  That $60 a month won’t pay all the bills will it?  Then what happens when the Medicaid applicant passes away.

Now you face Michigan Estate Recovery.  Did you take the right planning steps prior to the Medicaid applicant passing away?  Did you use a Michigan Legacy Deed?

Often times the family home is the asset that has the most sentimental value in it for a family and unfortunately, it can be one of the most difficult assets to properly plan for when you’re looking at Medicaid planning.  That is why it is important to work with an elder law attorney as you try to navigate the confusing long-term care legal maze.

The New York Times has an article on how this form of dementia has ravaged a family.

Researches have been making important discoveries about the genetic defects that cause some forms of the cognitive disease.

The disease is different from Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia.  According to the New York Times article, this form of dementia may be more devastating than Alzheimer’s because it strikes younger people, progresses faster and, unlike Alzheimer’s does not attack memory at first but begins with silence, apathy or bizarre personality changes.

If you have a loved one suffering from memory issues, it is important that you speak to a elder care lawyer familiar with memory care issues and how it necessitates certain legal planning needs.

One issue with remaining in one’s home as long as possible is receiving the necessary care that ensures it is still safe to remain in the home.  An issue that pops up is if you hire a home care company, how do you evaluate the agency?

Well, things just got a bit easier for those interested in working with a Medicare-certified home health agency because survey results are now posted on the Medicare Quality Care Finder website.  The survey results will be updated every four months with new data.  The surveys ask patients questions such as whether their home health team gave care in a professional way and communicated well with them.

According to the ElderLawAnswers article, CMS says the survey results are designed to create incentives for home health agencies to improve quality of care, as well as to give patients additional insight so they are aware of the types of care they may receive from the agency.

This is very important information because bringing a home care provider into the home of a Michigan senior is putting quite a bit of trust into the caregiver as well as the caregiver agency.  Plus, there are more and more home care agencies popping up each day, so its important to know the agencies to stay away from.

So, what are your thoughts?  Especially if you are a caregiver or home care agency owner or employee, what do you think about the ratings?

Many of the long-term care policies were sold as having “level” premiums, which would not increase based on age or health situation.  Premiums could only be raised if a state agreed that the insurer needed an increase to maintain their ability to cover the liabilities.  So what happened?  According to the article, insurance companies miscalculated the true costs of providing the insurance and the states were almost powerless to stop increases.

Now people like Bob are paying for the mistakes.

Our Bloomfield Hills, Michigan law firm helps seniors, veterans and their families navigate the confusing and complicated long-term care legal system including assisting Veterans qualify for the Aid & Attendance benefit that can bring in up to $2,019 dollars per month tax free to help pay the cost of care for senior veterans.

The rules for qualifying for the benefit include 90 days active duty, one day during a period of war and cannot be dishonorably discharged.  After that there is an asset test and an income test that the veteran, or surviving spouse of a veteran must qualify for.  Every veteran’s family situation is a little different and there are some hidden tips and tricks to qualify for the income and asset test.  That is why we’ve put together our Long-Term Care for Veterans booklet and email series to shed light on how qualification works.  For more information on qualifying for the VA Benefit, request your booklet here: Long-Term Care for Veterans.