Long-term care and Medicaid planning
Paying for care, before the crisis
Care at home or in a facility can cost more each month than a mortgage. Medicare covers little of it. Medicaid can help, but its rules are strict, and the choices you make now decide what's left for the spouse at home.
We start with the numbers: what care costs here, what you have, what counts and what doesn't. Then we show you the choices, in writing, before anyone signs anything or moves any money.
Yolanda leads most of this work and meets families in English or in Spanish.
Where we start
The numbers we run first
The cost of care
Home help, assisted living or skilled nursing, and how long your savings would last at each.
Medicaid eligibility
Which savings count, which don't, and how gifts made in past years are treated.
The spouse at home
Income and savings the healthy spouse is allowed to keep, so one illness doesn't impoverish two people.
The family house
Whether the house counts, and how to protect it from a claim after death.
Veterans benefits
A monthly benefit some wartime veterans and surviving spouses can use for care.
A plan for dementia
Who decides what, and when, as memory changes, written down while your parent can still say.
Paying for care: what families ask
Do we have to spend everything first?
Not always. Some savings and the house often don't count, and a spouse at home can keep a share. The rules differ by state and change often, so we check yours before you spend anything.
Can Mom give the house to us?
Please call before she does. A gift can delay Medicaid for months or years, and it can cost you a tax break on the sale later. There are usually safer ways.
Is it too late if Dad is already in a nursing home?
Usually not. There's often still planning to do for the spouse at home and for the application itself. Bring the facility's bills to the first meeting.
Bring the care bills
And the bank statements. Yolanda will sit down with the numbers and tell you, in plain words, what your choices are.