Long Island Elder Law & Estate Planning

According to Newsday, long-term care costs are rising rapidly in Long Island.  In an article published in the summer of 2015, Newsday explained the average bill for long-term care had increased 2.4 percent compared with the prior year.   An annual Cost of Care study revealed that a resident of a Suffolk or Nassau nursing home who had a semiprivate room would pay an average of $155,125 over the course of the year for the nursing home care.  This is significantly higher than the national average cost of $80,300 for a semi-private room in an assisted living facility. It is also higher than the cost in nearby Queens, where the average annual expense for a semi-private room in a nursing home is $144,540. long-term care costs

With long-term care costs increasingly so significant and reaching such high levels, many people are not able to afford to pay for nursing home care. Even if you have saved money and assets over the course of your life, you could spend all you have saved very quickly if you need to go into a nursing home.

You should not have to lose all of your property and assets because you need long-term care, and with advanced planning you can avoid this fate.  A Smithtown Medicaid planning lawyer at Mark S. Eghrari and Associates PLLC can provide you with assistance creating a plan to pay for long-term care costs in case you need to go into a nursing home.

Rising Long-Term Care Costs Increase Importance of Advanced Planning

As the cost of long-term care has risen in Long Island and surrounding areas, it has become more important than every to create a plan for payment in case you need to go into a nursing home.  Medicare covers the costs of assisted living care only for a brief period of time if you need rehabilitation and only provides coverage under very limited circumstances.  Most private health insurers also provide very limited coverage for long-term care costs or deny coverage altogether. As a result, you cannot count on your health insurer to pay for long-term care.

One option that may be available is the purchase of special long-term care insurance. You can buy an insurance policy which specifically protects against the risk of needing long-term care.  The problem is, such policies are often very expensive- and not all policies are created equal. Some insurers fail to provide the promised coverage that policyholders have paid for, although tougher regulations of the long-term care insurance industry have reduced the problems in this field in recent years. Even in the best of circumstances, however, long-term care insurance is an option only for a limited number of people because you must purchase it when you are young in order for a policy to be even reasonably affordable.

Because most people have no long term care insurance and don’t have health insurance to cover long-term care costs, other options must be explored. Medicaid is typically the best option, and Medicaid ends up paying for many people to get nursing home care. The problem is, Medicaid is needs-based, so you can’t have a lot of assets to qualify. If you have amassed savings and bought property over the course of your life, you may not qualify for Medicaid until you spent down your assets. This is undesirable because you don’t want to squander the legacy you hoped to leave for your heirs on a few months of nursing home care.

The good news is, with advanced Medicaid planning, you can transfer assets to a trust well before you need Medicaid to pay for nursing home care insurance. When done right, Medicaid planning can allow you to ensure your property is kept and handed down through the generations while getting you coverage for long-term care costs.   You will need to start the process of Medicaid planning early, though, because if you transfer assets to a trust (or to anyone else) within five years of needing to qualify for Medicaid nursing home care coverage, there will be a period of ineligibility.

A Smithtown Medicaid Planning Lawyer Can Help

It is very important you plan ahead so you do not end up struggling to pay for long-term care costs if you need nursing care.  A Smithtown Medicaid planning lawyer at Mark S. Eghrari and Associates PLLC can provide you with the assistance that you need to protect your assets  and ensure you will be able to afford care in a nursing home. Give us a call at (631) 265-0599 or contact us online to learn more about how an experienced lawyer can help you.

To learn more, please download our free long-term care are you getting prepared here.

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About Mark S. Eghrari, Estate Planning Attorney

Mark S. Eghrari is an attorney in private practice in Smithtown, New York. He has been in practice since 1988. Mark S. Eghrari provides extensive estate and tax planning services to individuals and businesses. Mr. Eghrari’s primary focus is helping clients avoid probate, minimize or eliminate Federal and State Estate taxes and protect their assets from the high cost of nursing care, if they become ill.