Frequently Asked Questions about Florida Medicaid Planning

What is Medicaid Planning?

There comes a time in most people’s lives when they need long-term care, despite its exceedingly high costs. Medicaid Planning involves identifying opportunities to preserve hard-earned assets when an individual, spouse or parent needs full-time nursing care.

As part of long-term care planning, Medicaid Planning is a strategy that allocates funds to support a healthy spouse in the case of a married couple or sets funds aside to supplement an individual’s family at death.

A Florida Medicaid attorney can help with the two stages of Medicaid Planning:

• Advanced Estate Planning: This process involves transferring assets five years or more before an individual anticipates nursing home admission. Through careful Estate Planning, these assets can be used for the care of an individual or couple for the remainder of their lives and inherited by their children or heirs after death.
• Planning just before nursing home admission: While advanced Estate Planning is always recommended, it’s not always possible for every individual. With this type of planning, a Florida Medicaid attorney will transfer assets at or around the time of nursing home admission, before the Medicaid application.

Assets transferred within five years of application incur a penalty, meaning that Medicaid will not pay for nursing care for a period of time. During this period, non-gifted assets are used to pay for nursing care until Medicaid can cover the bills to ensure that care remains uninterrupted.

How much does it cost to hire a Medicaid Planning attorney?

The cost of long-term nursing home care in Florida continues to increase. According to Genworth, in 2023, the monthly cost of a semi-private room and a private room in a Florida nursing home was $9,985 and $11,406, respectively. Many people believe they have too many assets to qualify for government assistance – but they are often wrong. Sadly, people pay out-of-pocket for their long-term care until they lose their home and life savings.

But with careful Medicaid Planning, you could possibly access the financial help you need to cover the cost of nursing home care. Medicaid Planning is the strategy of applying legal tools and techniques to help individuals qualify for Medicaid benefits. The cost of hiring a Medicaid Planning attorney is an investment in retaining your assets while qualifying for the benefits you need.

It’s helpful to look at the cost of a Medicaid Planning attorney in terms of the value they provide, instead of the money you spend. The process of applying for and receiving Medicaid benefits is arduous and time-consuming for the applicant. Furthermore, the government can impose severe penalties on individuals that make improper gifts or exceed the asset limit, including denial of benefits.

However, with appropriate planning, we can help you become eligible for Medicaid while still protecting the nest egg you’ve built over your lifetime.

How do I know if I need help qualifying for Medicaid?

Under normal circumstances, hiring a Medicaid Planning attorney is advisable at least five years before you begin retirement. It can be a complex process when an individual’s monthly income or assets exceed financial eligibility limits. Another complicating factor occurs when one spouse requires long-term care, but the other can still live independently.

While you can convert incomes and assets into non-countable assets, these transactions take time and require professional legal and financial assistance. Applicants can overcome the common challenges of determining how to divide and transfer these assets with an attorney’s guidance.

Why should I hire a Medicaid Planning attorney?

No one should apply for Medicaid until they have a proper plan for qualifying. Applying too early may cause a longer wait to qualify than necessary, while applying too late may require having to fork out sums of money to pay for the care you may never have needed to spend money on.

Moreover, improperly structured assets may lead to a denied application. Hiring a Florida Medicaid Planning attorney ensures your application is completed correctly in accordance with the law, speeds up the process and reduces administrative stress.

What is the difference between a countable and a non-countable asset?

There’s often a misinformed panic around losing assets or having to sell one’s home.

Florida assesses a person’s income and countable assets to determine their financial eligibility to qualify for Medicaid.

Countable assets include:

• Certificates of deposit
• Stocks, bonds and retirement accounts
• Checking and savings accounts
• Non-homestead real estate
• Annuities
• Secondary vehicles
• Cash value of life insurance if it exceeds $2500

Non-countable assets include:

• A primary home and vehicle
• Income-producing properties
• Pre-purchased funeral plans
• Personal property and household belongings
• Life insurance policies with no cash value
• Up to $1,500 in cash set aside for burial

Do I have to sell my home to qualify for Medicaid?

Your home may be considered a homestead under Florida law and an excluded asset for Medicaid qualification. In the event of death, an attorney can ensure your Estate Plan is properly structured to protect your homestead from Medicaid recovery — meaning it won’t be used to pay for healthcare costs.

What determines the cost of hiring a Medicaid attorney?

Various factors influence the cost of hiring a Medicaid Planning attorney in Florida, including:

• Marital status
• The applicant’s age
• A spouse’s and children’s age and health statuses
• The applicants’ financial status in terms of assets and income
• The urgency of the application
• Receiving gifts in the form of assets
• The existence of estate planning document

What if my Medicaid application has already been denied?

Concerning Medicaid appeals, handling responses properly is crucial to preserving appeal rights. Often, Medicare and Medicaid denials of claims in pre- and post-payments may be inaccurate. A Medicaid attorney will assess if the appeal denial is erroneous and take the correct legal action to properly execute the litigation process.