What Vaccines Does Medicare Cover?
Vaccines can become less effective over time. Even individuals fully vaccinated as children may need to update their immunizations. Medicare Parts B and D offer vaccination coverage. Medicare [...]
What It Means to Need ‘Nursing Home Level of Care’ for Medicaid Eligibility
When applying for Medicaid’s long-term care coverage, in addition to the strict income and asset limits, you must demonstrate that you need a level care typically provided in a nursing home. [...]
Can Life Insurance Affect Your Medicaid Eligibility?
When applying for Medicaid many people often forget about life insurance. But depending on the type of life insurance and the value of the policy, it can count as an asset. In order to qualify [...]
Saying It Keeps Families in Poverty, Advocacy Groups Call to Abolish Medicaid Estate Recovery
To qualify for Medicaid coverage of long-term care, you must satisfy very complicated financial eligibility rules—rules that often can be traps for the unwary. One of the most significant traps [...]
Can an IRA Affect Medicaid Eligibility?
For many Medicaid applicants, individual retirement accounts (IRAs) are one of their biggest assets. If you do not plan properly, IRAs can count as an available asset and affect Medicaid [...]
Using Estate Planning to Prepare for Medicaid
Long-term care involves not only a loss of personal autonomy; it also comes at a tremendous financial price. Proper planning can help your family prepare for the financial toll and protect assets [...]
Medicaid Planning with Trusts: Part II
As we discussed last month, irrevocable trusts are legal documents that you cannot remove assets from and whose terms you cannot change the trust is established. These are most often created for [...]
Why an Irrevocable Trust May Be Superior to Gifting
Parents and other family members who want to pass on assets during their lifetimes may be tempted to gift the assets. Although setting up an irrevocable trust lacks the simplicity of giving a [...]
Trump Administration Proposes Major Change to Medicaid’s Funding Structure
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will now give states the option to obtain a portion of their federal Medicaid funding via so-called “block grants.” This potentially [...]
Feds Release 2020 Guidelines Used to Protect the Spouses of Medicaid Applicants
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released the 2020 federal guidelines for how much money the spouses of institutionalized Medicaid recipients may keep, as well as [...]
