When your relative is in an assisted living facility or nursing home, oftentimes they cannot access their assets any longer. That’s when it is necessary for you to have the financial power of attorney, which allows you to immediately access your loved one’s assets and act on their behalf. In Maryland, financial powers of attorney…
Transferring Medicaid Costs From the Federal Government to the State There is constant pressure from the Federal government to cut Medicaid costs. One drastic solution is to push Medicaid costs from the Federal government to the State. Instead of being treated as an entitlement program (i.e. if you are eligible then you will be covered),…
Medicaid Cost Cutting One of the various changes proposed by candidate Trump was the idea of shifting Medicaid responsibility from the Federal Government to the States. The rational proposed by Trump was that such a move would “maximize flexibility to states via block grants so that local leaders can design innovative Medicaid programs that will…
Our firm was recently successful in helping a family recover funds for an elderly mother and her adult disabled son who was subject to guardianship. The person of interest was a neighbor who posed as an accountant to prepare the elder mother’s and her disabled son’s tax returns. Unknown to our client was that this this individual opened…
We just won another Medical Assistance appeal issue. In this case, Medical Assitance was initially denied for nursing home benefits and the son of the Medical Assistance applicant was handed an invoice from the nursing home for over $100,000. Needless to say, he was upset. We were able to successfully argue that that the transactions…
The issue of whether or not an IRA asset is a countable asset is an interesting issue from a Maryland Medical Assistance perspective. For individuals and their spouses, when an ill spouse goes into a nursing home and reviews the issue of applying for Medical Assistance for the ill spouse, the issue that routinely comes…
Medicaid Spousal Impoverishment Figures for 2012 The new minimum community spouse resource allowance (CSRA) is $22,728, and the new maximum CSRA is $113,640. The new maximum monthly maintenance needs allowance is $2,841. The minimum monthly maintenance needs allowance remains $1,838.75. This has yet to be implemented for Maryland. It is expected to come out shortly. It is unclear…
According to the newly published survey by Metlife, the average cost of long term care continues to rise. According to the report the average room nursing home rates rose nationwide by 4.4 percent to $87,235 a year or $239 a day, while assisted living facility costs jumped 5.6 percent on average to $41,724 a year…
Recent Tax Court Decision Clarifies When Long-Term Care Expenses are Deductible There is no question that long-term care can be very expensive (both assisted living and nursing home level of care). However, many of these long-term care expenses can be deducted the parent’s income tax return as a medical expense deduction. A recent U.S. Tax Court…
What is cited below is another jurisdictional case which illustrates the limits of what a State may do to accomplish a Medical Assistance (i.e. Medicaid) recovery on community spouses’ assets. In this case, an attempt was made to put a Medicaid lien on the estate of a recently deceased community spouse at a time when the…