Elder Law/Medicaid
Are you prepared? What about your parents and grandparents?

According to the US Department of Health, it is estimated that at least 70% of people over the age of 65 will need long-term care services during their lifetime. When the level of care a loved one needs begins to exceed what is available to them at home, we are then faced with the difficult decision of whether or not their comfort and needs would be better met with around the clock care in a nursing home. While most of us would do anything possible to keep a spouse or parent home, where we could care for them personally, sometimes this is just not possible.
Are you prepared? What about your parents and grandparents?
The average monthly expense for nursing home care in the state of Arkansas is $5,383, or about $170 a day – totaling a whopping $64,000 or more a year. Unfortunately, many retired Arkansans don’t have enough income each month to cover this large of an expense. Even those who may have a sizeable savings built up, often don’t have enough to cover more than a couple of years in nursing home costs. This is where the Medicaid long-term care program comes in. While there are many regulations that dictate what you can and can’t have in order to qualify, you may keep $2,000 , your home (if equity is less than $560,000, or if your spouse, a child under the age of 21, or a blind or disabled child still resides in the home), one automobile, and burial spaces , as well as a prepaid funeral, for any member of your immediate family.
There are many common issues that applicants don’t recognize when attempting to apply for Medicaid on their own. Owning life insurance policies with cash values, owning a second home that may have been purchased for the applicant’s child, but left in the name of the applicant, giving items or money as gifts to family members, or making other disqualifying transfers during the five year look-back period, are all obstacles that applicants may run into, which will effectively cause their application to be denied.
Most people are aware of the five year look-back imposed by DHS, but usually don’t fully understand the complications it may cause for their specific situation. For instance, paying $10,000 towards a grandchild’s college tuition only two years prior to entering a nursing home would result in nearly a two month disqualification period. Likewise, even if no monetary gift is made, if you do not receive what DHS considers fair market value for an item that you give away, you will also be penalized. An example of this would be if you sold your child a piece of property, that was valued at $40,000, but they only paid you $20,000. If this conveyance occurred less than five years before you applied for Medicaid, you would be disqualified for over three and a half months.
However, there is no need for panic if you or a loved one are facing issues with Medicaid qualification; there ARE ways to remedy any issues that can speed up the applicant’s approval.
The dreaded process of applying for Medicaid is often very long and convoluted. When clients come to Nash Law Firm for assistance with applying for Medicaid long-term care, our goal is to alleviate the stress that this burden can place on families, and provide them with the peace of mind that the cost of their loved one’s nursing home stay is taken care of.








