Elder Law

Elder law is a specialized and rapidly growing area of the law. It focuses on helping seniors prepare for and cope with the numerous changes that accompany growing older. One of the most important aspects of Elder Law is assisting seniors and their families in finding ways to pay for long-term care. Most seniors will eventually require some form of long-term care during their lives. Given the fact that such care average upwards of $10,000 a month, it is hardly surprising that many middle-class families exhaust their life savings within a year or two of entering a nursing home.  At Strategic Wealth Advisory Group, we have helped numerous seniors and their families find solutions for obtaining long-term care without losing all of their life savings.

Pre-Planning

As with all aspects of estate planning, putting a plan together sooner rather than later is the best approach to preparing for the possibility of incapacity and the need for long-term care. One option to accomplish this is known as long-term care insurance. It can protect assets and provide peace of mind. Unfortunately, it is extremely expensive, often carries high deductibles, and many seniors with existing medical conditions cannot qualify for it at all. The good news is that there are other options available to you, which we can explain and put into place to protect your hard-earned assets. A properly designed and implemented plan not only helps ensure you will receive the long-term care you need, but also can give you and your loved ones greater peace of mind.

Medi-Cal Planning

Medicaid (which is called Medi-Cal in California) is now the largest payer of nursing home bills in the United States. Some 60 percent of nursing home residents receive assistance from Medicaid. Before you apply for Medi-Cal assistance on your own, it is a very good idea to speak with an elder law attorney. Why? There are a number of complex rules governing eligibility for Medi-Cal. For example, if you give away assets improperly in the hopes of becoming eligible, your claim may well be denied or you will be unable to obtain benefits for years. Considering the cost of long-term care, such a scenario can be financially devastating.

A Medi-Cal Crisis

While it is always best to plan in advance to meet the cost of long-term care, we recognize that this is not always possible. A Medi-Cal crisis is a situation in which an individual must enter a nursing home immediately, or in the very near future, and been informed that he or she has too many assets to qualify for assistance from Medi-Cal. If you or someone you love is faced with a Medi-Cal crisis, you need to know that the information provided by friends, or even nursing home intake staff and social workers, is not always completely accurate. Medi-Cal laws are complicated and ever-changing. At Strategic Wealth Advisory Group, we understand these laws and have years of experience helping seniors navigate the application and approval process. And even if you have been denied benefits, or are in a nursing home already, we may still be able to help you obtain Medi-Cal assistance. Protect your life savings from the high cost of long term care.

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