Richard M. Barron
attorney at law
Helping your loved one
Get the nursing home
care they deserve,
while legally protecting
your Family's assets.
Medicaid
Planning
Our goal is to
help you protect your assets from the cost of nursing home
or other other long-term care, and to assure security for
your spouse and a legacy for your children.
We can guide you through the Medicaid
Application maze and save you time and money.
Eligibility Requirements
There are primarily
four hurdles
to get over in order to
achieve Medicaid eligibility.
Categorical
Requirements -
A
Person must be at least 65 years of age,
blind, or disabled,
and be a U.S. citizen or a resident alien.
Medical Necessity- The applicant must meet the
medical eligibility
requirements for Medicaid.
This evaluation is completed by the applicant's doctor
on a TDHS
provided form known
as the 3652 or level of care form.
Income Eligibility-
The applicant may not
receive direct
income of more than
$1,869.00. If the amount exceeds
the cap, a Miller Trust can usually solve the problem.
Asset Eligibility-
The baseline amount for eligibility is
$2,000.00 subject to many
exceptions as indicated in this
website. A person should not think that if the amount
of assets
greatly exceeds the $2,000.00 baseline amount that
nothing can be done. There is usually an
array of
techniques available for legally preserving assets without
losing at all. The base
amount for both spouses
entering a nursing home and applying for Medicaid is
$3,000.00, also
subject to many exceptions.
We will be glad to evaluate your situation.
Miller Trusts or QIT's- Commonly known as
income sheltering
devices, these trusts enable otherwise income
ineligible
Medicaid applicants to qualify for Medicaid.
The Miller Trust was established as the result of a Colorado
case in which four elderly women were unable to
receive
Medicaid benefits because they received too much income.
However, there was not enough income to
pay for the average
cost of nursing home care. The women's conservator
seeking to right an injustice, sued the
federal government
and won. The case resulted in the statutory Miller
Trust.
Texas like Colorado is an income cap state. That means
that if the applicant receives more than the published
"cap"
income in direct income per month then the person is income
ineligible for Medicaid.
If a Miller Trust is used, the state Medicaid program no
longer recognizes the income and thus the applicant
becomes
income eligible for Medicaid benefits.
The current income cap in Texas is $1,869.00 per month which
changes every January. Income that exceeds
the cap
disqualifies an applicant. Here is an example of how a
Miller Trust works. Say and individual receives
$2,000.00 per month of income. The $2,000.00 can be
placed into the Miller Trust and bills paid out each
month
as allowed by the Texas Department of Human Services.
Typical bills paid would be a $60.00 personal
needs
allowance to the applicant, some insurance premiums,
allowance to a community spouse, if eligible, and
the
balance in applied income to the nursing home. The
exact amounts and payments authorized are
determined by TDHS.
Miller Trusts are also refereed to as Qualified Income Trust
("QIT").
Spousal
Impoverishment-
A Typical spousal impoverishment
case is one in which one spouse is headed for the
nursing
home and the other will remain in the community. The
community spouse is entitled to a certain level
of asset
protection which at the minimum is $20,328.00 and the
maximum is $101,640.00 for the year 2007.
The amount the community spouse is allowed to keep is known
as the Protected Resource Amount ("PRA").
However,
what many individuals who go through the Medicaid process do
not discover is that there are federal
regulations that can
be utilized to preserve in many, if not most, cases a
significant amount of assets for the
community spouse which
far exceeds the published maximum stated above.
Spending Down- "Spending down" is a
phrase that is used to describe the process of spending
one's assets in
order to become eligible for Medicaid by bringing the
countable resources below the $2,000.00 limit of assets allowed.
Spending down should only be done in an informed manner.
Otherwise, money that may have been ultimately
preserved in cash or property may end up being needlessly spent on
goods or services that may have
otherwise been preserved.
Click
Here for Planning Documents
Click Here for Reasons to go forward
with our help
Click Here for Common Mistakes in
Texas Medicaid
Click Here for Documents you will
need to proceed
Click here to request more information
Legal Disclaimer
This information
has been provided for informational purposes only. It
does not constitute legal advice.
The receipt of
this information does not establish an attorney-client
privilege.
Proper legal
advice can only be given upon consideration of all the
relevant facts and the law.
Therefore, you
should not act upon any information contained herein without
seeking
appropriate
legal counsel.
Richard M. Barron
Attorney at Law
209 E. Main Street
Whitesboro, Texas 76273
903-564-3663, 800-939-9093
Fax - 903-564-5562
e-mail -
[email protected]
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