My husband is now in a very expensive memory care facility in a city 2 hrs away. His physical health is pretty good, but he's pretty bad otherwise. Having been a business teacher 'til he retired, he always took care of the bookkeeping for us. I am doing it now and it's just about driving me crazy. Not only that, but I have no projection about how long our money will last. Our house is in my name. I have my name on the deed, but I have no idea if I'll have to divide that with the estate or if I can keep it after my husband's demise. I called Family Services today at 3:00 , but got no reply as I guess the social workers start getting ready to close up shop an hour before it's time to leave. I live in Minnesota and I fear our finances will be cut right down the middle eventually. If any of you have any suggestions about how I could find any information on this on the internet, I would really appreciate it.
The first question is whether you have (ever?) made the trip to elder law attorney?
A good elder law attorney can put together trusts, wills, Power of Attorneys, etc. that are STATE SPECIFIC that can help protect property and assets as the dementia worsens and there might be a need for government assistance.
Proper paperwork can protect assets. ;-)
This is NOT something that should be done by someone who is not an expert IN YOUR STATE and never use generic internet forms.
As I process the 3 estates from my my recent event, I am SO THANKFUL that mom/dad & wife all had their papers in order!! Example: I needed the DPOA for healthcare to be able to cremate my parents without getting signatures from my very uncooperative siblings. Who knew???
I second seeing an elder law attorney. Trying to do this on your own is dangerous.
You should look into a financial planner. In addition to your questions about the estate on your husband's death it sounds like you have basic financial issues that you need to resolve. You need to project how long your money will last and when to take related actions. I would see an elder law attorney first and if you like them to ask for a recommendation for a financial planner.
I appreciate your advice. My sons and I will see my lawyer on July 5 and try to get a projection. The lawyer has already implemented power of attorney. our wills etc. with us. We don't have financial issues yet, but will for sure after a period of time. I will let you know what what the lawyer advise us. In addition to the trauma of having ones partner with this terrible disease, the complications and pain of the financial end of it is rubbing salt in the wound - as most of you know.
If your atty is not an elder law atty perhaps he can refer you to one. It is VERY important that you consult with someone who is VERY knowledgeable in your state laws on Medicare and Medicaid.
I'm going to throw a monkey wrench in here. We had an elder law attorney do our wills, dpoa, etc. etc. When I needed him to do the paperwork for Medicaid, he wanted $6,000.00. The business office in the nursing home did it FOR NOTHING.
This happens a lot, too. Most nursing homes or AFL's will do it for nothing. Or, if you can find a Medicaid Consultant - they are much, much more reasonable.
I don't think any of us would advise against consulting an elder care attorney.
I'm commenting because I found it difficult to find not advice, but good advice. If I made a list of professionals consulted it would include 3 eldercare lawyers, 1 guardianship specialist lawyer, 1 estate lawyer, 1 care manager 3 employment lawyers and 2 financial advisors during the last three years of my husband's life.
Complicating issues included my husband's age, that he had significant issues with his employer, and most likely my overt anxiety about all of it.
Early on I found that my dpoa was good in our state, period. One of the initial things I wanted to do concerned car ownership, and even though it was purchased locally, the finance company was located in another state and they would not accept the dpoa.
One of the elder care lawyers advised me to go, pronto, to a divorce lawyer, and would you guess- she knew just who to recommend. I found that financial institutions often have their own documents and not accept dpoa either. Although my concerns were far more the same than different, the charges and fees varied widely.
I thought about this topic last night and wondered how to find good advice, reasonably priced ? For lawyers anyway, it seems like the bar associations, Martindale-Hubbel, the AVVO ratings, etc. were not much more than advertisements. I'm guessing there is no one easy answer. I'm sure though it must be/ must have been daunting for more than me alone.
I agree with abby* finding GOOD advice is difficult. Many attorneys, care managers, etc. promote themselves as experts in the field (elder care, estate planning, etc) and several are connected with each other and do referral to the person with whom they have a business relationship. For example, I had contacted a CERTIFIED elderlaw atty and made a consultation apt, then the night before the apt my hb got lost coming home and I had to pick him up 45 miles away. I met with the atty, told him the story and he immediately recommended a geriatric care manager (with whom he had already discussed our situation) and gave me the price for his services for medicaide planning. Unfortunately 2 months later we had another crisis with dh and I contacted the same atty again. No longer a flat fee for the medicaide planning but an hourly rate that had all of a sudden increased by $100/hr. The original agreement was $10,000 for the Medicaid planning documents but then there was no cap on his fees and he implied it would be significantly higher than $10,000.
My experience on trying to find a professional who deals with elder law and Medicaid planning is to ask local social workers (area office on aging, hospital social workers) or social workers connected with geriatric assessments at hospitals which do that locally. Also speaking with Directors of local ALFs/NHs with dementia units is another source. BEWARE, any one who has a business relationship with an elderlaw atty might not be objective, but you can get some good leads.
Like everything else with this disease, nothing is easy!
Check with a local city/regional magazine for their list of top lawyers. This should have them broken down by category so you should be able to find eldercare lawyers, perhaps under a different name.
BUT before you trust the listing find out how it was made. Many of the smaller magazines don't write them themselves but get a list from another company. In these cases the lists may be vetted or not.
At my employer we survey lawyers and ask them to rate the top people outside of their firm for different types of law. This isn't perfect and is biased against smaller firms and solo practitioners.
Check with Alz Assn to see if they have any recommendations. Ask if this is just a list of lawyers or recommended lawyers.
Contact a local reporter or writer how covers lawyers. They should be familiar with the dirt.
NH called me today to say that Sonny has progressed as far as he can with therapy.now medicare will stop covering his care.They have asked me to come in for a meeting next week to duscuss the payment and how it will affect what I can spend for my own upkeep. We have already been to an eldercare attorney,I am anxious to see if the NH has the same explanation.He says I can keep 115,000 of assets,but Sonny has enough in his IRA for maybe 3 yrs. Does some of that come to me to make up my share?Better not to have saved all these years,wouldn't have all this worry.
Depends on the state I suspect but I am sure that they look at all assets and the Ira will be treated like money in the bank. So if you have less than $115,000 in other assets I would think you can keep part of the IRA. Another approach is to convert the IRA into an annuity, it then doesn't count. Even if payments from it went to his care, you could get payments after he dies. This is my guess, you need expert advice but do ask about this approach.