I get asked pretty regularly, what is Elder Law? Elder Law can be a variety of things but in our practice, Elder Law is assisting Senior Citizens with getting the government benefits that they need to help them get the long-term care they need.
The biggest part of that is getting them onto Medicaid, hopefully without spending through all of their assets. Now this isn’t the community Medicaid that most people think of. This is the program that pays for 20 hours a week of in-home care, some assisted living facilities or nursing home care.
The qualifications for this benefit are different depending on if it is a single person or a married couple. For a single person, they must have less than $2000 in countable assets. For a couple, there is a calculation to determine how much the spouse at home gets to keep, which is half of the total assets, with a minimum of $31,584 and a maximum of $157,920. However, with proper planning, there are ways to protect some of the person’s assets so that they don’t have to go broke getting the care that they need.
Countable assets include checking, savings, CDs, money markets, investments, cash value of life insurance, vehicles (if more than 1), properties (if more than 1), etc., and in certain circumstances, IRAs and 401(k)s.
There are some exempt assets, which include the house, 1 vehicle, term life insurance, burial polices, household goods and furnishings, and in certain circumstances, IRAs and 401(k)s. For a person to qualify for Medicaid, they have to reach those asset limits and once they do, the state begins paying for their care. Once this happens, the Medicaid recipient gets to keep a whopping $50 each month from their income and the rest of it typically goes to the facility, unless there is a spouse at home and sometimes they may get to keep part of that income.