A Smithtown special needs planning attorney provides help to parents, relatives and loved ones who wish to provide an inheritance or a financial gift to someone who has a disabling condition. It’s vitally important that you talk with an experienced attorney about how to structure a gift or an inheritance if you are going to be providing items or assets of value to someone who is disabled. If you do not put the right plans in place and the disabled person who you provide a gift to receives an inheritance or financial gift, this could cause a loss of access to means-tested benefits that could put continued access to medical care in jeopardy. 
Eghrari Law Firm can help to ensure that this does not happen. Our legal team can work closely with you to make a special needs plan that provides protection both for benefits the disabled person is currently receiving as well as protection for the gift or inheritance that you provide. To find out more about how a Smithtown special needs planning attorney at our firm can help you, give us a call today.
Why is Special Needs Planning so Important to Ensure Continued Access to Medical Care?
Many people who are disabled are unable to work. As a result, they don’t have access to employer-provided health insurance and cannot afford to buy private health insurance coverage. Many private health insurance policies that are available could also come with high deductibles and co-insurance costs that could be difficult for a person with disabilities to pay for, especially if the disabled individual requires a lot of medical care and has a limited income or no income at all.
To make sure people with disabilities get covered even if they have limited assets, Medicaid provides coverage even for those who cannot afford it. Medicaid can pay for many of the costs that a person with a disability incurs in getting care. Medicaid, for example, is even one of the few sources of coverage for long-term care at home or for nursing home care.
The issue is that Medicaid is means-tested and there are resource limits. If someone has too many financial resources, this could result in that individual being disqualified from getting covered by Medicaid. This means that if you provide an inheritance directly to a person who is disabled, that person could now have the inheritance counted as a financial resource. Because of the property that was left to him or her in the inheritance, the disabled person may have too many assets to continue qualifying for Medicaid coverage.
Medicaid coverage could be taken away because of the inheritance and the fact the disabled person is no longer impoverished enough in the eyes of the law to get covered. This could leave the disabled person who you have provided an inheritance to without coverage for essential care. The available options would be limited. The inheritance could be used to pay for expensive medical care and costly health insurance coverage sold on the private market, and the entire inheritance could be spent quickly.
You don’t want an inheritance to be wasted just paying for medical care that Medicaid would have otherwise paid for. This is why it is so important to work with an experienced attorney to make a Medicaid plan so an inheritance can be provided while benefits are protected. Eghrari Law Firm can assist you with the use of tools like a special needs trust to put a plan in place to provide for the supplemental needs of someone with disabilities while leaving eligibility for government benefits in tact.
Getting Help from a Smithtown Special Needs Planning Attorney
A Smithtown special needs planning attorney at Eghrari Law Firm can work with you to determine if a gift or an inheritance you intend to provide could put Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income, or other important benefits at risk. If you want to ensure that you structure an inheritance or gift to a loved one with a disability in such a way that the money or property is appropriately managed and does not put benefits in jeopardy, we can also help with this process.
To find out more about the assistance that our firm can offer with the special needs planning process, join us for a free seminar. You can also give us a call at (631) 265-0599 or contact us online at any time to get help making your plans.
How to Make an Estate Plan That Takes Your Family’s Needs Into Account
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