Guardianships and Conservatorships
Conservator
Conservator
Trusts
Advance Directives for Health Care
In General
There are a variety of situations in which other people may make decisions for you.
Time for First Contact
Consider contacting an Elder Law attorney before you, your spouse, or your parents make any significant transfer of property. Consider getting the advice of an Elder Law Attorney:
Elder Law includes a wide range of subjects, including matters relating to Medicaid, including asset protection, Medicaid spend down, look back periods, avoiding or dealing with disqualification for Medicaid, and planning for a situation where one spouse needs to enter long term care, but the other may be able to remain in the home.
Things You Should Know
The cost of long term care and medication can easily exceed $10,000 per month per individual. Even in lower cost long term care situations, the cost often exceeds $4,000 per month.
Ten years of long term care at these rates, thus, ranges between $480,000 and $1.2 million.
In addition, if a person is not able to handle his or her own affairs, the cost of a protective proceeding such as a guardianship or a conservatorship can range between a few thousand dollars, and many tens of thousands of dollars.
Health Care Documents, Finances and Business, Guardianships and Conservatorships
There are a variety of situations in which other people may make decisions for you.
Health Care Documents
It can be very important to have a valid Advance Directive for Health Care in place, so that if you are unable to direct your own health care, the person you want to make health care choices for you will be able to direct doctors and hospitals, and will be able to have access to your health care information.
Unfortunately, many trusts will trap assets and force them to be spent for the medical costs of an ill spouse, when the assets could otherwise have been saved from Medicaid spend down, and could have been used for the well spouse.
Generally once one spouse has qualified for Medicaid, there will be a need for the other spouse to re-do their estate and incapacity planning.