You may be interested in using Medicaid if you’re going to be moving into a nursing home. You want the government benefits to pay for your long-term care. You know how expensive this care can be, but it’s also crucial to your quality of life.
The problem is simply that you’re not sure if you’re going to qualify. You know that Medicaid can technically be used for a nursing home, but the person who is using it has to qualify for the program in order to obtain the benefits. If you have too many assets or too much income, then you may not qualify, so you won’t be able to use them.
You can spend down your assets
In a situation like this, the most important thing to know is that you can spend down your assets. This reduces the level of assets that you own until you will qualify for Medicaid again.
Spending down assets, then, may become a big part of your estate plan. Maybe you want to give gifts to your children in advance, removing those assets from your estate now so that they don’t have to be counted. Perhaps you want to set up some sort of a trust that can hold the money on your behalf, officially taking it out of your estate. Or maybe you just want to give some of your money to charity or to causes that you support.
People often worry that they’re going to lose the assets that are most important to them, like a car or a house. But a lot of necessary assets are not counted when looking at Medicaid eligibility. So you may be able to keep the things that you really need, get rid of the excess and then qualify for the benefits for use at a nursing home. Just make sure you know what steps to take.