What is a nursing home and Medicaid assessment?
What is a nursing home and Medicaid assessment?
Attorney Tom Olsen: You offer what I think is a great service. That great service is a Medicaid-
Attorney Robert Hidock: Assessment.
Attorney Tom Olsen: Medicaid assessment. A Medicaid assessment is where with a client comes in, you gather some financial information from them. You put together a plan for them, a blue print for them. We're going to talk about that blueprint. In addition to the fee that they pay you to do that, you give them this good financial power of attorney.
Attorney Robert Hidock: We do. We actually will put together about a seven or eight page report, an analysis if you will, of what their exposures are, what's going to be countable, what's not going to be countable. We also take it one step further and give them if they're married, if one person goes into the nursing home, what their healthy spouse gets at home, what kind of a spousal allowance they can get. I like to say we actually do two tiers of planning. If it's a married couple, obviously, we protect assets to the healthy spouse. Then if there's only one spouse left, we do planning to how they're going to protect their assets for their children.
Attorney Tom Olsen: That's really great, Robert, because as you said earlier, there's a lot of misconceptions out there about nursing homes and how to pay for nursing homes and this Medicaid assessment, it does exactly what you said. That is to separate fact from fiction. People out there listening to this right now saying, "I don't know. Gosh, I own this, I own that. I own IRAs, I own a condo at the beach,I own rental property. I own this, I own that. What's the deal? Am I going to have to pay for my own nursing home or not?" Well, there's one way to find out folks. A great way to find out, and that is have Robert do a Medicaid assessment for you. He'll lay it out all out for you.
Attorney Robert Hidock: We'll actually devise a plan. One of the people that came to our last workshops, he has eight rental properties and they're not countable assets for Medicaid. The asset is protected
Attorney Tom Olsen: If we use the proper tools.
Attorney Robert Hidock: Absolutely.
Attorney Tom Olsen: Robert, we don't normally quote fees over the air, but this is one fee I want to quote because I want to encourage people to come get this done. The fee is so reasonable.
Attorney Robert Hidock: The fee for the Medicaid assessment is $600. We would to encourage them to bring the power of attorney that they have with them. If I don't like the way it looks and it doesn't have the Medicaid language, we'll do the power of attorney for them as well.
Attorney Tom Olsen: Okay, so Medicaid assessment only $600 and you get a good financial power of attorney out of it. You get a blueprint. If you're a married couple, it's going to cover what would happen if just one of you goes into a nursing home, but then have a second plan if the second of you goes into a nursing home. If you're a single person it's going to obviously cover that situation. That blueprint is in place for you. Now you know, you've separated fact from fiction, but you can also share it with your kids and say, "Kids, if I ever have to go into a nursing home, here's a plan."