What is elder law?
Hi, I'm Eric Beutel, and today I want to talk about elder law and what an elder law attorney does.
I have the pleasure of guiding people as the leaders in their families to build a legacy and to create peace of mind.
I'm an attorney and I focus my practice on estate and incapacity planning, elder law, and probate.
Before I get started I'd like to just remind you if you have any questions about estate planning, elder law, or probate you can always reach out and book a time to talk to me. I'd be glad to talk for free just go to ericbeutel.com to schedule a free consultation
And don't forget to follow me on social media and like my youtube channel so that you can stay up to date with new videos that I come out with.
So have you ever wondered about the term elder law and what it means?
Have you heard people talk about Medicaid asset protection for applying for Medicaid and being maybe over the limits and not being able to qualify?
Well in this video I'm going to explain what an elder law attorney is and how and when one might need one.
Essentially, an elder law attorney is concerned with helping clients pay for long-term care.
Statistically speaking, most of us are going to wind up in a nursing home someday.
And while we don't like to admit it, eventually it becomes impractical to stay at the house even with a home health aide.
Sometimes 24-hour care is what's necessary and what's best for not only the elder client but for the family as well.
What many people don't realize is medicare and its supplements aren't enough.
A lot of people think Medicare will pay for long-term care but it won't.
The truth is it only pays for 100 days.
So then what happens after medicare is finished paying for that 100 days.
We know that the average cost of a nursing home in our area in the Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati area is between 6,500 and 8,000 a month.
So that's eighty to one hundred thousand dollars a year.
This means that a lot of folks who need skilled care in a nursing home will go broke paying for that, especially if they have to be in their home for more than a year.
The average stay in our area is well over that.
So people will have to run through their life-savings just to pay for the care that they need, and then they likely don't have anything left to leave to their family including possibly their spouse.
So as you can see nursing homes and assisted living facilities are very expensive.
But there are ways to stretch your long-term care dollars.
There are typically three primary methods of paying for a nursing home or an assisted living facility.
You can pay privately with your own money.
You can use insurance that covers some or all the costs of long-term care.
And then there are needs-based benefits like VA benefits or Medicaid.
So a little bit about private paying for nursing homes:
Private paying for care often means totally indigent.
As I mentioned before, the cost of a nursing home in our area is above 6500 a month, and assisted living facilities are a little bit less but they are also very expensive.
So people are outliving their savings.
And many people spend all of their savings on a nursing home and then they have nothing left.
It's not a good option.
The next option that I mentioned was long-term care insurance and that works for some.
But most people don't have long-term term care insurance, and by the time they realize they need it, it's too late.
And it's very expensive and not something that they can either qualify for or afford at that point.
So then that leaves us with needs-based government benefits.
These are things like you've heard of VA, veterans benefits, and also Medicaid.
In Kentucky, Medicaid pays for almost all nursing homes including some of the finest facilities.
You just have to know you know how to get in and what you need to do.
And Medicaid increasingly covers assisted living facilities.
But to qualify for Medicaid applicants have to have below a certain asset level.
You have to have below two thousand dollars in savings and assets, and you have to have income less than twenty-three hundred dollars a month in our area.
So most families in our area, as I said, don't have long-term care insurance nor do they have millions of dollars to pay for this type of care.
So, therefore they're forced into poverty if they have to pay for their long-term care.
So among other services that elder law attorneys offer to enhance quality of life, we help people ethically and legally convert countable savings into non-countable savings, so that our clients can qualify for Medicaid and get the care that they need and deserve.
As one court put it:
“No agency of the government has any right to complain about the fact that the middle-class people confronted with desperate circumstances choose Medicaid asset protection when the government itself is the one that established the rule that poverty is a prerequisite for the receipt of government assistance in defraying the cost of a ruinously expensive but absolutely essential medical treatment.”
That's kind of a long quote to read to you here, but it's important to understand that what we do is morally and ethically legal, and it's necessary.
So we can help families to make sure that they can get the care they need without leaving them in poverty.
And that's what we do as elder law attorneys.
We help people ethically and legally keep their savings and still qualify for Medicaid.
People typically ask for help from an elder law attorney in one of two situations:
The first is a crisis when they need the care immediately because of an unexpected sudden stroke, or while they're still relatively healthy but they realize they're in the early stages of a disease or a progressive disease that's going to force them into care like when they've been diagnosed maybe with early-onset Alzheimer's or perhaps with Parkinson's.
But we can also help people in planning for incapacity and asset protection well before they need it.
We can help you set up strategies that will protect your assets, through our enhanced estate planning techniques that cover a whole range of services, in case you do need long-term care down the road.
If you have questions about elder law, and maybe how you can use it, and if you need it, feel free to reach out to me.
Again, you can go to ericbeutel.com to schedule a free consultation.
I'm available by phone, over zoom, or in person.
Again, ericbeutel.com.
And don't forget to follow me on social media, like this youtube video, and follow my youtube account.
If you know anybody who can use this information, please feel free to share it.
I'm always happy to talk more.
Thank you very much for your time.
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Let me know if there's any way I can help.
Thank you.