To help give you and your family financial assistance for long-term planning and potentially preserve some of your hard-earned assets.
Walser & Herman Law Firm is founded with the intention of assisting those with various challenges, low-income earners especially.
We help give individuals and their families financial assistance for long-term care planning to potentially preserve some of their hard-earned assets.
There are specific categories of people who are eligible to apply with us for Medicaid, and they include, low-income earners below a certain age, pregnant women, parents of Medicaid-eligible children who meet specific income requirements, low-income disabled individuals who receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI), and the low-income earners of ages 65 and older.
Registering with us will help provide you and your family with mandatory medical and health care services such as nursing facility services, home health services, physician services, family planning services, nurse midwife services, x-ray and laboratory services, rural health clinic services, and inpatient – outpatient hospital services.
Medicaid can also provide a couple of optional benefits such as prescribing drugs, clinic services, physical therapy, occupational therapy, respiratory services, personal care, prosthetics, dentures, dental services, podiatry services, hospice, services in an intermediate care facility for people with intellectual disability, services for individuals aged 65 or older in an Institution for Mental Disease (IMD), psychiatric services for individuals under age 21, etc.
It helps protect any inheritance or gifts you would like to leave that disabled person while still allowing them to remain eligible for their government benefits.
It is essential to have a Supplemental Needs Trust (SNT) in place for a disabled person -blind, deaf, dumb, etc. – with the purpose of making life better for them.
It helps protect any inheritance or gifts that you may like to leave to that disabled person while still allowing them to remain eligible for their government benefits.
Not just anybody with a disability needs an SNT, however. Generally, an SNT is done for a person receiving, or likely to receive means-tested public benefits. Medicaid and Supplementary Needs Trust are examples of means-tested federal benefits.
An SNT can help a person with a disability by allowing such a person to receive distributions from the trust without the trust being counted as a resource. The person maintains his eligibility for public benefits while also getting his quality of life enhanced.
However, there are certain limitations. The trustee can spend on “Special Needs” but not “Support.” There are certain things Trust money cannot pay for, such as mortgage, electricity bill, or property taxes.
It is a jointly funded federal and state program to help cover the medical needs for low income individuals.
Most people use the term “Medicaid” and “Medicare” interchangeably, but there is a huge difference between these two seemingly close terms. While Medicare is a Federal program that provides insurance if your aged 65 or older; Medicaid on the other hand, is a Federal program providing insurance for people with meager income.
It simply means that no matter how old you are, as long as you earn very little, you are eligible for Medicaid. The State and Federal government jointly fund this program. Although the Federal government creates it, is administered by the state.
Currently, the Medicaid program covers 55 million low-income Americans, and it is rapidly becoming a powerhouse player in healthcare.
It’s a vehicle that can provide life enhancing services for an individual that has special needs while still allowing them to remain eligible for government benefits.
A special needs trust, also known as a supplemental needs trust, is a specialized trust that provides disabled beneficiaries with the opportunity to enjoy the use of property that is held in the trust for his or her benefit, while also allowing the beneficiary to receive essential needs-based government benefits at the same time.
A Special Needs Trust (SNT) is a special type of irrevocable trust that can be used for minors, beneficiaries with disabilities (either mentally or physically challenged), and as a method of asset protection.
They are usually used to receive an inheritance or personal injury settlement on behalf of a disabled person, or a minor and are found from the proceeds of compensation for litigation, criminal injuries or insurance settlements.
Special needs trusts are usually set up under the watch of a “structured settlement planner” in line with a qualified legal and financial team to ensure the trust is appropriately set up.
At Walser & Herman Law Firm, we help to protect any inheritance or gift you would like to leave that disabled person, while still allowing them to remain eligible for their government benefits.
There is no level to the income a well spouse can have. Speak to a competent attorney about other options when it comes to an applicant’s income being diverted to the well spouse.
You don’t have to worry when your spouse goes to a nursing home, there is something called “spousal protections” that allows you to keep some assets and income and still qualify for Medicaid with us.
Walser & Herman Law Firm does not require a healthy spouse to give out all of her income and property, just for the needy spouse to qualify for long term care through Medicaid. We implore “spousal protection” rules to provide the spouse of a nursing home resident the opportunity to keep enough income and assets to live on.
We also allow these spouses to keep some of their spouse’s income if they are in need of serious financial support. “Minimum Monthly Maintenance Needs Allowance” (MMMNA) is the amount of money a spouse can keep, and the good news is; it is not added to the Medicaid eligibility calculation. The MMMNA varies from state to state, but government tries to regulate it according to some poverty guidelines.
You must be a US citizen or be a resident alien, and must have medical needs requiring nursing home car, and meet income and asset eligibility requirements.
To participate in Medicaid, Federal Law requires us to cover certain groups of people, including Low-income families, qualified pregnant women and children, and individuals receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI).
We also have additional options to cover other groups including individuals receiving home and community-based services and children in foster care who are generally not eligible.
The Affordable Care Act of 2010 opened up an opportunity for us to expand Medicaid to cover almost all low-income Americans under the age of 65.
If eligible, you should try to apply for Medicaid to help give you and your family financial assistance for long term care planning and potentially preserve some of your hard-earned assets.
Yes, you must be a US citizen or a resident alien in order to receive Medicaid.
Under a federal requirement that took effect from July 1, 2006, most United States citizens applying for Medicaid or renewing their coverage will be required to prove their citizenship by submitting a passport or a combination of their ID and a birth certificate.
This requirement was put in place to prevent illegal immigrants from fraudulently enrolling in Medicaid.
Your spouse cannot transfer all of his assets to you in order to qualify for medicaid. There is a level, around 119,000, that the community spouse is allowed to keep. Please speak to a competent attorney for more information.
We allow a spouse to keep one-half of the couple’s marital assets, subject to a minimum and maximum, according to federal guidelines. We will measure the assets of the spouse applying for Medicaid on the date that he/she began a hospital or nursing home stay that lasted at least 30 days.
The amount of assets the healthy spouse is allowed to keep is called the “Community Spouse Resource Allowance” (CSRA).
If a spouse living in a community needs more assets than the CSRA, he/she can seek a court order allowing a variation from the state agency’s standard.
No, you do not have to use your assets before you can get Medicaid. Speak to a competent attorney about ways that you can preserve your assets while still being eligible to qualify for Medicaid.
Private pay residents in a nursing home are those who can pay their monthly nursing home costs from their income, savings or money that they received from selling their assets. We have a set daily fee for “private pay” residents which are stated in the nursing home contract.
Make sure you read the nursing home contract carefully before signing so that you won’t give consent to a wrong agreement.
It is never too late to give away your assets to qualify for Medicaid.
In most scenarios, the person’s current situation determines whether it is legally possible to give away all assets and immediately qualify for Medicaid. Most people think once they are in the nursing home, they have to spend all their assets on the nursing home care until they meet the Medicaid criteria but it doesn’t work that way.
Even in the nursing home, an individual can carefully plan for Medicaid to help him/her meet up the criteria and qualify
Our attorney here at Walser & Herman Law Firm can help you journey on ways to move your assets properly to preserve them to qualify.
Yes and the level of its veracity has been conditioned. Medicaid is an entirely unique program that considers paying for its participants’ long-term care, for this reason, Medicaid has the right to be reimbursed for the entire amount it exhausted to care for its participants.
Every state has its guidelines and legal procedures on the Medicaid reimbursement process. One of the things that qualify a participant for Medicaid is that the participant must be a low-income earner and possess few assets apart from their home. However, this depends on the participants’ state of residence. For anyone who qualifies, Medicaid foots the entire bill of a long-term stay in a Medicaid participating nursing home.
If Medicaid shoulders the bill of its participants, then it has the right to seek reimbursement for all it calculated expenses it has covered to care for participants by merely making a claim. The reimbursement comes from the value of a participant’s house.
This case is more prevalent when Medicaid discovers that a participant is dead, this process is always referred to as “Estate Recovery.”
To be honest, there is no specific amount you need to make as an income before you qualify for Medicaid; therefore, the income level is set depending on the state you live in, just as required by the federal law.
Strictly considering two factors, which includes the state you live in, and the size of your family or household determine the income level. The latter states that income can be higher; when there are more people in the family, which includes any dependents irrespective of the age, while the former poised that after the federal might have set the required minimum standard for the Medicaid program, each state has the legitimate right to increase the income level to ensure it covers more people.
The federal Medicaid set it income level or eligibility based on the Federal Poverty Level (FPL). On the average, you are to make $2,199/month as income; if you make over that amount, then you are considered qualified. (Kindly note, the dollar rate used may change anytime, therefore don’t rely on this figure until you verify the current rate.)
Medicaid has a five-year look-back period from the date of application where they look back five years to see if you’ve given away any gifts or uncompensated transfers. If you have, they have a penalty for that.
During your Medicaid application process, one of the questions you are expected to answer is “Have you made any transfers or gifts in the last five years?” now, if your reply is yes! This might lead to disqualification or penalized and also required to mention any of the gifts or transfers you have made.
The Medicaid state officials will look only at giveaways within five years i.e., 60 months before Medicaid application. To ensure accurate calculation by Medicaid, the total number of what you gave away will be divided by the penalty divisor (which equals the cost of nursing home care in the state).
However, during the Medicaid look-back period, sometimes the penalty for transfers is not applicable to all transfers depending on what asset was transferred and the person such asset was transferred to and the time of the transfer. In all, the look-back period determines what kind of transfer will be penalized.
If this is somewhat confusing, you can always consult Walser & Herman Law Firm for more clarification.
No, you can not transfer your assets to your children just before you go into a nursing home and still qualify for Medicaid. This would be considered an uncompensated transfer. When applying for Medicaid, they look back five years for any uncompensated transfer and you would be penalized for this.
No, you can’t be barred. Medicaid is a federal program although the requirement and eligibility vary from state to state.
As long as you are a US citizen, a Florida resident or a resident alien and you meet the requirement of Florida, then you are eligible for Medicaid.
Also, the federal government regulations apply to all states, and it’s an infringement of the US constitution to enforce a residency requirement to an individual who moves to a state.
Yes, the Medicaid rules vary from state to state. Designed to provide coverage for economically disadvantaged populations across America, Medicaid rules vary based on the population of each state. Federal law sets broad requirements for Medicaid and mandates coverage of some populations and benefits, while leaving others optional. Each state has the flexibility to improve, modernize and update their Medicaid program by choosing:
- Who is eligible for enrollment
- Which services are covered
- How payments to providers are established
It is often said that variability in Medicaid is the rule rather than the exception. States establish their own eligibility standards, benefit packages, provider payment policies, and administrative structures under broad federal guidelines, effectively creating 56 different Medicaid programs—one for each state, territory, and the District of Columbia.
These are established through each state plan, a comprehensive document that must be approved by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The document can be amended as needed to reflect changes in state policy, federal law, and regulation.