Crisis Medicaid Planning

Here's a call we often receive: "My husband had a stroke and he's being discharged from the hospital tomorrow, what do we do?"

This is a crisis. The wife is panicking about losing their savings and the nursing home wants her to sign an entrance agreement accepting personal liability for her husband. The hospital wants to know where they're going to discharge him. Things are happening quickly.

We can help provide clarity of thought during this onslaught of decisions. We've helped countless families just like this through these issues. We can be there for you and your family so you can make sound decisions about what agreements to sign, how to pay for care, and what to do about government benefits.

Planning for a sudden onset condition is no simple task. Our job is to make the best of a bad situation. No one wants to be facing long-term care and if you or a loved one are facing that reality, we can help to find a way to control costs and preserve assets.

We first look to find the goals. Is it saving money from being spent on the nursing home care? Is it buying the best care for as long as possible? Is keeping a family business running? We have experience to try to best manage the looming spend-down so it's used wisely. In some situations, we can offer solutions to save everything. In others, we can find ways to save a good portion.

What can you do in advance?

Have a good durable general power of attorney. If a sudden onset condition strikes, we hope you have a good power of attorney in place so we have someone with the right powers to be able to manage assets giving the broadest range of options. Without a good power of attorney, we may be forced to look at guardianships or severely limited options. If you're worried about a sudden onset condition, please consider having us prepare a full estate plan or at least a durable general power of attorney for you.