There are many worries an elderly person may have when they are making the transition from living independently to living in a nursing home. This includes worries about the financial impacts of receiving care at a nursing home. Nursing home care costs can be very high.
One government program that sometimes helps seniors with nursing home care costs is Medicaid. However, Medicaid benefits for nursing home care are only available to individuals whose asset levels are below a certain level. One strategy elderly individuals sometimes use to try to meet this eligibility requirement is to spend down their assets. This basically means reducing their asset levels through spending to get such levels below the limit for Medicaid eligibility.
Now, given how concerned an elderly individual who is entering a nursing home can be about nursing home care costs and getting Medicaid eligibility, they may be tempted to just try to spend down their assets as quickly as possible without exercising much care as to how they do it.
However, as is the case with any type of long-term care cost planning, there is a right way and a wrong way to do a Medicaid spend-down, and doing things the wrong way could have serious consequences. There are many different rules and regulations regarding what sorts of property are and are not counted in a person's asset totals when determining Medicaid eligibility and what are and are not acceptable spend-down tactics. Trying to spend down assets without taking these rules and regulations into account could result in a person doing a spend-down in a way that needlessly wastes assets or results in a penalty period being placed against them when it comes to Medicaid eligibility.
Our firm understands how complicated the rules related to Medicaid spend-downs can be and how vital doing things the right way can be when it comes to a Medicaid spend-down. We can guide elderly individuals here in Michigan who are seeking to be eligible for Medicaid benefits for long-term care costs through the spend-down process and other aspects of Medicaid planning.