Medi-Cal Planning
There are two types of Medi-Cal Planning: Crisis Planning and Pre-Crisis Planning. It’s a good idea to plan before a crisis hits, but it’s never too late!
Crisis Planning
Crisis Planning deals with an individual who has either been admitted to a nursing home or is about to be placed in a nursing home and they have been told, or suspect, that they have too much money or too many assets to qualify for Medi-Cal.
If this is you or a loved one, your family is facing nursing home costs which will cost several thousand dollars per month, perhaps in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. Without proper Medi-Cal planning, usually life-savings are the only source of money to cover these astronomical costs. Most people’s estate will be depleted in only a few years. It’s only when you’ve met the financial test for Medi-Cal that the government will step in and cover your nursing home stay.
To add to the difficulties, people receive poor advice about how to qualify for Medi-Cal, often from well-intentioned family and friends. Following that advice can often have unintended negative consequences. For instance, if you gift your assets to your kids, you may delay the Medi-Cal qualification process, rather than speed it up.
Unless you work in this field, you’re probably unaware of the ways you can legally preserve the maximum amount of your hard earned assets and income while still qualifying for Medi-Cal benefits in the shortest amount of time, even after a crisis hits.
These are your savings, your hard-earned assets, saved over a lifetime – you owe it to yourself to help protect them and meet with a qualified professional in the field who can help make it happen.
You don’t have to go broke or lose your home to qualify for Medi-Cal.
Call us to schedule a confidential Medi-Cal planning consultation to discuss your issues. We’ll be able to tell you in the first meeting if we can help and what we’ll be able to help protect and save for you and your family. It’s never too late to call us.
Pre-Crisis Planning
It is preferable to plan before crisis hits, as there are more planning options available. Pre-Crisis Planning is for individuals or married couples who are currently healthy but want to plan for the real possibility that someday one or both will become incapacitated and require long-term care. Pre-Crisis Planning is for those who want to avoid depleting their life savings and hard earned assets. It’s for those who want to ensure qualification for Medi-Cal so that their estate is left to their loved ones rather than eaten up by the astronomical costs of assisted living.
The truth is that everyone, including you and your loved ones, may very well require assisted living or nursing home care one. In fact, recent studies suggest that over half of the population presently over 65 years old will find themselves facing this reality, and the costs that come with it.
Unfortunately, skilled care is expensive. Several thousand dollars a month and potentially over a hundred thousand dollars a year, maybe even more, will eat up your hard-earned savings…money that you probably need, and count on…money for a healthy spouse or money that can be left to family and loved ones.
We can help develop a comprehensive asset protection plan that contains the right structure in case you or a loved one becomes disabled and unable to make decisions. We can help put a plan in place today that contemplates a long-term nursing home stay while qualifying the individual for Medi-Cal as quickly as possible, while protecting as much of the assets as possible…legally.
In addition, the estate planning documents that non-elder care attorneys will draft tend to focus on after-death distributions and sophisticated tax planning, with little or no thought paid to how your affairs should be managed in case of disability. We work to help you create a holistic plan that details how you will be cared for during periods of incapacity.
The most important thing in Pre-Crisis Planning is giving you peace of mind. We know the law, and we will work with you to learn about your family and your personal goals. Together, we will develop a plan that will work when you need it. Our goal is to help you sleep soundly at night… with the comfort of knowing that you have a plan in place which will protect your assets when the unthinkable happens.
To learn more about how we can help you with Medi-Cal planning, call our office and schedule a meeting to discuss your specific situation.
Contact us today at: 818-864-6174 or Email us at: vanessa@vterzianlaw.com and schedule an initial consultation with The Law Offices of Vanessa M. Terzian
