I help elderly clients and their families plan for long-term care. For most of us, that means planning for Medicaid, which is the de facto long-term care insurance policy for the middle class. If your family is facing a long-term care crisis, I’m here to explain the complicated rules and give you clarity. The bottom line is that I can save you money, time, and frustration when it comes to Medicaid.
My Medicaid services include:
FAQs:
If you or a loved one have a disability and receive means-tested government benefits—such as Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Medicaid—you need special planning. Special needs trusts can provide money for a person with a disability without endangering their benefits.
When a person who receives SSI or Medicaid gets an inheritance directly, it can be more trouble than it’s worth. Often, the inheritance disqualifies them from their benefits and is used up paying for things the benefits used to cover. That does no one good. Thankfully, special needs trusts solve that problem.
My special needs services include:
If you have questions or want to see if I can help you, the best thing is to schedule a short phone call. Click the button to get started with a free 15-minute phone consultation.
Attorney
I became a lawyer to help families like mine. I came to elder law because it’s all about the biggest challenges families face: providing and caring for loved ones.
In today’s world, that means navigating the bureaucracies of law, money, and health care. As an elder law attorney, I understand these complex issues and know how to navigate them. So I’ve made it my mission to take these complicated problems about Medicaid, trusts, and long-term care and give my clients the clarity and help they need to care for their loved ones.
I help families care for their elderly or disabled loved ones.
When a loved one needs help with the basic activities of daily life, families step up to the plate. But then they find themselves in a financial, legal, and medical world of excessively complicated laws and procedures. They get mired in bureaucracy.
My goal is to be the opposite of those bureaucracies. When my clients face complexity, I bring clarity. When my clients feel like cogs in a machine, I treat them like human beings. And when my clients don’t know what to do or how they’re supposed to do it, I help them accomplish their goals the correct way.
Be clear.
You should understand your situation and your options. Clarity means being as short and simple as possible—and as long and detailed as needed.
Be human.
Being calm, patient, and understanding, even in a crisis, is essential. Elder law is not about money—it’s about people.
Be correct.
Being accurate and detailed matters. In elder law, one small detail can make all the difference.
Also known as Medical Assistance in Wisconsin, most families first learn about Medicaid when an elderly loved one can no longer live at home. They start looking at assisted living facilities and nursing homes—and at bills of $5,000-$10,000 per month. They know the savings won’t last forever. Then what?
Thankfully, Medicaid pays for the long-term care of elderly people, even those who have middle-class income and assets, once their assets fall below a certain level.
The fact is that a third of people turning age 65 today will deplete their savings during their lives and need to rely on Medicaid. It has become the default long-term care insurance policy for the middle class.
Of Americans age 55 and older have no long-term care insurance.
Average cost of a nursing home in Wisconsin
Of people turning 65 today will deplete their life’s savings and need Medicaid to pay for long-term care.
“Since January, everything that can go wrong has,” she said. Her mother was in a nursing home. She had problems of her own, too. She wasn’t the first loved one I’d seen overburdened with all the financial and medical problems of a parent in addition to her own.
She dropped a large stack of papers, folders, and a binder on my desk. I started sifting through them, looking for any bits of information I could clarify.
The largest stack was a copy of a Medicaid application submitted for her mom. It was the third application in as many months. The first application she had tried herself. Denied. A hospital worker prepared the second. Denied. This one was prepared by someone in the nursing home’s business office.
At least I could tell her this application wasn’t denied—yet. The key was a single piece of paper, front and back, titled “Notice of Proof Needed.” It said she had one week to get more proof of her mother’s finances, or the application would be denied. Just like the others had been.
She looked exasperated when I explained this. “I’ve already given them all that, many times.” But whatever she gave them wasn’t enough. Unfortunately, the notice didn’t tell her what she really needed to get.
On top of all that, when she called the county to ask questions, the workers wouldn’t talk to her. They said they didn’t have an authorization to speak to her. I looked at the application and saw the problem: the authorization form had been submitted without a required signature. A quick call and a fax fixed that, at least.
But that wasn’t the only mistake the nursing home had made on the application. I circled a few others for her. Of course, the home was pressuring her to pay all the while—they even suggested using her own credit card.
At the end of it all she thanked me for looking things over and helping her understand. That was the first time she didn’t sound frustrated or angry or overwhelmed. It wasn’t over; not by a long shot. But at least she finally knew what she had to do and had a chance.
A special needs trust saves money while allowing its beneficiary to continue qualifying for SSI or Medicaid. These programs require a recipient to have less than $2,000 in countable resources. So when a person on SSI or Medicaid receives a lump sum of money—such as an inheritance—it’s actually a problem. A special needs trust is the solution. It allows the money to be set aside to supplement, rather than supplant, public benefits.
The most common type of special needs trust in Wisconsin is a Wispact trust. Wispact, Inc. is a Wisconsin non-profit that manages pooled trusts. A pooled trust is one big trust with many sub-accounts for disabled beneficiaries. About 650 new Wispact sub-accounts are created each year, and the average amount put in each sub-account is about $35,000.
A Wispact trust is often the easiest, simplest, and fastest way to create a special needs trust in Wisconsin. It’s also usually the most affordable. That’s because Wispact has a grant program that often reimburses the legal fees involved, and because Wispact’s ongoing fees for managing the trust are much lower than other corporate trustees’ fees.
I typically use special needs trusts for clients in one of two situations.
SSI and Medicaid require the recipient to have less than $2,000. When that person suddenly gets an inheritance, it can kick them off these important benefits and be more trouble than it’s worth. They might get a check from a relative’s estate and not cash it for months. They need the money, but they also need the benefits.
What they need is a special needs trust, and the sooner the better. This kind of trust can preserve the inheritance for their future use without disqualifying them from SSI or Medicaid. The trust becomes a helpful fund that can pay for the many things government programs won’t.
When you have a child with a disability who has or is likely to rely on SSI or Medicaid in the future, you need to include a special needs trust in your estate plan. This is the best way to ensure that child is provided for and still receives his or her fair share of your estate, while protecting their public benefits and choosing someone responsible to manage the financial side of things for them.
