Can My Loved One Benefit From Memory Care?
Sep 30, 2015
If you're loved one has been diagnosed with dementia or Alzheimer's disease, researching their long-term care options as early as possible is essential. One care option that has become increasingly more common is memory care. What Is Memory Care? To know if your loved one could benefit from memory care, you'll first have to understand what type of care it is. Memory care provides specialized, long-term nursing care to those with serious memory-related conditions like dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Memory care facilities provide specific tasks and activities like music therapy or monitored
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Why the Special Needs Trust Fairness Act is Essential
Sep 30, 2015
With unanimous approval by The Senate, the Special Needs Trust Fairness Act is on its way to helping those individuals with disabilities who are able to help themselves. What is a special needs trust? Medicaid is a program that can help pay for health care costs, housing and support services. Many individuals need Medicaid to help pay for these items and services. Medicaid restricts the amount of assets the person on Medicaid can keep and still qualify for Medicaid. From time to time, a Medicaid recipient may
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A Beginner’s Guide To Financial Caregiving
Sep 3, 2015
Adult children often help their parents make medical and health care decisions. If you are also helping your parents with money management and bill paying, this makes you a financial caregiver. Your main role as a financial caregiver could include: determining the right long-term care that meets a loved one’s needs helping them with money management protecting them from financial fraud bill paying and tax preparation Taking on the finances of others can be a stressful ordeal. Here are the ways that you can encourage
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Know Your Long-Term Options: Care Insurance vs. Disability Insurance
Sep 3, 2015
Without a doubt, most individuals 65 or older (at least 70% of them to be exact) will require some form of long-term care during their golden years. Dealing with the costs of such care can be overwhelming, which is why certain insurances exist to help ease the burden. It can often be difficult to decipher the differences between long-term care insurance and long-term disability insurance at first glance, however, it's important to know what each brings to the table. Both can be great to have
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Gift Giving: Are You Gambling With Medicaid Eligibility?
Jul 31, 2015
As the need for affordable long-term care continues to rise, our elderly loved ones are looking for ways to get nursing home care and provide a financial future for their family. Many find comfort in the benefits that Medicaid offers, however some may find that gifting assets away can jeopardize their Medicaid long-term care coverage. Medicaid Gifting Rules Medicaid is a means-based assistance program. Through strict guidelines, it provides coverage to recipients whose assets total a minimum amount set by the state. In order to
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3 Types of Special Needs Trusts You Need To Know About
Jul 29, 2015
Families with special needs children often are often concerned about how they can pass assets to their children without interrupting important public benefits, such as Medicaid. Supplemental needs trust, sometimes called special needs trust, can assist in protecting these very important benefits. There are three main kinds: 1) third party supplemental needed trust 2) self-settled supplemental needs trusts, and 3) pooled supplemental needs trusts. What are third party special needs trusts? Third party supplemental needs trusts are established to benefit a person using money and assets that
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How the New VA Proposed Rule Could Affect Your Family’s Benefits
Jun 30, 2015
Veterans and spouses of veterans - you may want to pay close attention. A new rule was proposed by the Department of Veterans Affairs in January of this year that may cause you an extra headache or two when it comes to applying for needs-based benefits. The pension program that would be affected by the change is for low-income veterans that are 65 or older. Why the VA wants change The goal of the proposed rule is simply to protect the integrity of the pension
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Be Storm Ready: Special Needs Emergency Planning
Jun 30, 2015
As Houston area residents know, storms can become life threatening situations in mere moments. That’s why when we have a loved one with special needs, we have to be even more prepared for any emergency situation. Whether your loved one has mobility, visual, hearing, speech, or cognitive disabilities, you will need to not only plan ahead, but also put that plan in action during a disaster. Here’s how. Research Before Planning Knowing what what disasters you and your loved ones are susceptible to is the
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Warning: How Observation Status Affects Medicare Coverage
Jun 4, 2015
Recent reports suggest that hospitals have increasingly classified new patients as under observation (or outpatient status) to protect themselves against Medicare policies that prevent payouts to hospitals for excessive patient admissions. However, many of the patients under observation are being cheated out of thousands of dollars. Inpatient vs. Outpatient: What is Covered? Under federal law, Medicare won't pay for post-hospital extended care services for patients who haven't spent three consecutive nights in a hospital as an admitted patient. Anything short of that means patients are responsible for covering nursing home costs on their own,
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Why You’ll Likely Never Need To Worry About Estate Tax
Jun 4, 2015
Each year, an overwhelming majority of estates will get by without having to pay any federal estate tax, or "death tax". This is because you can leave a rather significant amount of assets to the inheritor(s) of your estate before taxes would even begin to kick in, which is a huge relief. Just how much can you leave your loved ones tax-free exactly? Try $5.43 million. Double that to $10.86 million for married couples. While these figures sound a bit ridiculous, it provides almost everyone with peace of mind
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