Elder Law

Every adult needs a comprehensive estate plan. This can include a Last Will and Testament or a Revocable Living Trust to dispose of your assets after passing and to name guardians for any minor or special needs children. Just as important are what I refer to as the Living Documents: Durable Power of Attorney, Healthcare Power of Attorney. Each of these documents allows you to name someone whom you trust to step into your shoes and make financial decisions or healthcare decisions should you become unable to do so yourself. A Living Will is also important to draft while you have the capacity to do so in order for your physicians and family to know your wishes in the unthinkable event of an immediate end-of-life choice.

Many of my clients do not realize until it is too late that assets could have been protected from Medicaid if the client had planned well in advance of ever needing 24/7 nursing care. The silver bullet for many financial plans is a diagnosis of Alzheimers, dementia, or Parkinsons, to name the ones most prevalent and rising in our country. These horrible illnesses typically develop slowly, leaving loved ones requiring expensive, but necessary, healthcare for years.

Willett Legal has the tools to plan for this potential scenario, but we must begin planning quickly. Medicaid currently has a five year look back for any property or asset moved to an Irrevocable Trust.

We can’t know what we don’t know. And so often, we learn of Medicaid spend-down and clawbacks as we are helping sign a loved one into a nursing care community.

Willett Legal has tools and strategies that can be used should you find yourself facing immediate nursing home expenses, private paying thousands per month until you meet the asset limit set by Medicaid. Basically, you private pay for nursing home care until you are destitute and only THEN can you apply for Medicaid.

But at Willett Legal, we have proven strategies to protect certain assets or establish non-countable assets, to supplement care not otherwise provided by Medicaid.

A parent or guardian’s worst nightmare is often what will happen to my child when I am no longer here. A well drafted special needs trust or spendthrift trust can establish a succession of trusted individuals to be the child’s guardian and/or conservator throughout that child’s life.

A comprehensive Special Needs or Spendthrift Trust can operate to safeguard inheritance while maintaining means-tested government benefits, like Medicaid.