How to Protect your Home and other Assets from Nursing Home Costs

Worried about How To Pay for a Nursing Home?

Nursing home costs are not something to take lightly. Whether it is your own assets or those of your loved ones, nursing home costs can quickly escalate to be a burden that cannot be handled without professional help.

It is imperative that you have a plan for paying for these expenses.

The Rising Costs of Nursing Homes: Just How Much Will it Cost?

Families often wonder how much it will cost for a loved one to live in a nursing home. The cost of a private room in a nursing home averages about $200 per day and can be as high as $600 per day. Residents who reside in shared rooms with other patients may only pay $150-$250 per day. Factors that affect the cost of care include: location, type of care, and insurance coverage that the resident has. For more information on how to pay for long-term care at a nursing home, please contact our office at 1-800-403-6078 or visit the website at: www.ElderLawCalifornia.com

What Are My Options for Paying for Long-Term Nursing Home Care?

In order to maintain your independence and keep your home from being sold to pay for nursing home care, there are a few options to explore.

  1. Medi-Cal Planning
  2. Accessing Life Insurance
  3. Long-term Care Insurance

What is Medi-Cal Planning?

Medi-Cal Planning is an essential legal process that helps protect your home and other assets from the cost of nursing home care. It can help ensure your loved one has access to all necessary resources to live comfortably in the community rather than a nursing facility. There are many ways to plan for this inevitability, but two important steps are determining eligibility for Medi-Cal by consulting with an attorney, and then creating a Medi-Cal Advance Directive.

For starters, an attorney may advise you to set up a long-term care trust to fund the payments. These trusts can be structured in a variety of ways and provide an alternative for those who want to avoid the stigma of Medicaid.

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Can I Use My Life Insurance to Pay for Long-term Care?

Some life insurance policies allow the policy owner to receive a tax-free advance on their life insurance death benefit while they are still alive. The amount of money received from these types of policies varies, but typically the accelerated benefit payment amount is capped at 50 percent of the death benefit. Not all life insurance policies include this feature. If requested, some insurance companies will include this feature in the policy for an additional cost.

Long-Term Care Insurance: How Does it Work?

One way to protect yourself is to purchase long-term care insurance by the time you are 65 years of age. This type of insurance will typically pay for care received in a nursing home and it can greatly reduce the amount of money that you need to set aside for this purpose. Long-term care insurance is one way to protect assets from nursing home costs, but it’s not the only option.

Long-Term Care Insurance covers the cost for care in a skilled nursing facility or other healthcare setting, as well as additional costs like personal care and assisted living. Every situation is different. Long-term care insurance is not meant to last a lifetime, it can run out, leaving the individual or their family with having to pay for ongoing long-term care costs

Avoiding Long-Term Care Financing

What can you do to avoid this expense and still be taken care of in the long-term?

Most Americans are unprepared for the high cost of long-term care. Nursing home costs can easily reach $200,000 over the course of a year. But there are steps you can take to avoid this expense – and still be taken care of. One way is to include language in your will that specifies which family member should be responsible for making sure you’re financially taken care of if you need nursing home services or other long-term care.

Provide a Power of Attorney

A power of attorney is a legal document where you name another person to make decisions on your behalf if you become unable to make decisions yourself.

Other Options for Asset Protection

What other options are there to protect assets from nursing home costs besides long-term care insurance and avoiding long-term care financing?

Nursing homes are expensive. You can request that an attorney help set up a trust that will allow you to transfer assets into the trust while retaining ownership. A special needs trust can also help protect assets from nursing home expenses. If you have children, a trust can help ensure that hey receive an inheritance from your estate instead of having to sell your assets to pay for your long-term care expenses.

Every situation is different. Call Elder Law Services of California today at 800 403-6078 to schedule a free consulation with an attorney who specializes in these matters.

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