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Protect Your Assets From Devastating Nursing Home Costs

Medicaid Secrets book cover.K. Gabriel Heiser. How to Protect Your Family's Assets from Devastating Nursing Home Costs: Medicaid Secrets. Phylius Press, Nashville, TN, 2009. 287 pages.

$47 from publisher (Order the book on Amazon).

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Nursing home costs are expensive and keep going up. Medicaid will pay for nursing home care, but the program has very strict income and asset limitations. How to Protect Your Family's Assets from Devastating Nursing Home Costs: Medicaid Secretsprovides advice on how readers can qualify for Medicaid without losing all their assets.

Author K. Gabriel Heiser, an attorney specializing in elder care and estate planning, provides detailed and practical information on how Medicaid works and the strategies for qualifying for it. Very up-to-date, Medicaid Secrets includes the changes to Medicaid transfer rules made by the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. The 2009 third edition includes all changes in the law through Jan. 1, 2009. Heiser takes a complicated subject and presents it in an easy-to-understand manner. Medicaid law varies from state to state, so the strategies won't work in all states, but the book gives readers a broad overview and many ideas to bring to their attorneys.

The book begins by explaining what Medicaid's coverage of long-term care is and how to apply. The author provides detailed information on the income and asset qualification rules for both single and married individuals. The book then goes into strategies to qualify for Medicaid, including converting assets from countable to non-countable resources, making transfers to family members, entering into a personal services contract, using annuities, and changing a will in case a spouse ever needs nursing home care. There is also detailed information on estate recovery and several case studies.


Created date: 02/12/2008
Medicaid 101
What Medicaid Covers

In addition to nursing home care, Medicaid may cover home care and some care in an assisted living facility. Coverage in your state may depend on waivers of federal rules.

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How to Qualify for Medicaid

To be eligible for Medicaid long-term care, recipients must have limited incomes and no more than $2,000 (in most states). Special rules apply for the home and other assets.

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Medicaid’s Protections for Spouses

Spouses of Medicaid nursing home residents have special protections to keep them from becoming impoverished.

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What Medicaid Covers

In addition to nursing home care, Medicaid may cover home care and some care in an assisted living facility. Coverage in your state may depend on waivers of federal rules.

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How to Qualify for Medicaid

To be eligible for Medicaid long-term care, recipients must have limited incomes and no more than $2,000 (in most states). Special rules apply for the home and other assets.

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Medicaid’s Protections for Spouses

Spouses of Medicaid nursing home residents have special protections to keep them from becoming impoverished.

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Medicaid Planning Strategies

Careful planning for potentially devastating long-term care costs can help protect your estate, whether for your spouse or for your children.

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Estate Recovery: Can Medicaid Take My House After I’m Gone?

If steps aren't taken to protect the Medicaid recipient's house from the state’s attempts to recover benefits paid, the house may need to be sold.

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Help Qualifying and Paying for Medicaid, Or Avoiding Nursing Home Care

There are ways to handle excess income or assets and still qualify for Medicaid long-term care, and programs that deliver care at home rather than in a nursing home.

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Are Adult Children Responsible for Their Parents’ Care?

Most states have laws on the books making adult children responsible if their parents can't afford to take care of themselves.

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Applying for Medicaid

Applying for Medicaid is a highly technical and complex process, and bad advice can actually make it more difficult to qualify for benefits.

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Alternatives to Medicaid

Medicare's coverage of nursing home care is quite limited. For those who can afford it and who can qualify for coverage, long-term care insurance is the best alternative to Medicaid.

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ElderLaw 101
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Distinguish the key concepts in estate planning, including the will, the trust, probate, the power of attorney, and how to avoid estate taxes.

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Learn about grandparents’ visitation rights and how to avoid tax and public benefit issues when making gifts to grandchildren.

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Understand when and how a court appoints a guardian or conservator for an adult who becomes incapacitated, and how to avoid guardianship.

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Health Care Decisions

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Distinguish the key concepts in estate planning, including the will, the trust, probate, the power of attorney, and how to avoid estate taxes.

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Grandchildren

Learn about grandparents’ visitation rights and how to avoid tax and public benefit issues when making gifts to grandchildren.

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Guardianship/Conservatorship

Understand when and how a court appoints a guardian or conservator for an adult who becomes incapacitated, and how to avoid guardianship.

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Health Care Decisions

We need to plan for the possibility that we will become unable to make our own medical decisions. This may take the form of a health care proxy, a medical directive, a living will, or a combination of these.

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Understand the ins and outs of insurance to cover the high cost of nursing home care, including when to buy it, how much to buy, and which spouse should get the coverage.

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Medicare

Learn who qualifies for Medicare, what the program covers, all about Medicare Advantage, and how to supplement Medicare’s coverage.

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We explain the five phases of retirement planning, the difference between a 401(k) and an IRA, types of investments, asset diversification, the required minimum distribution rules, and more.

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Senior Living

Find out how to choose a nursing home or assisted living facility, when to fight a discharge, the rights of nursing home residents, all about reverse mortgages, and more.

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Get a solid grounding in Social Security, including who is eligible, how to apply, spousal benefits, the taxation of benefits, how work affects payments, and SSDI and SSI.

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