Nursing home costs can be astronomically expensive, totaling more than $100,000 annually in many cases. The bills for nursing home care are much higher than most families can comfortably pay, raising the question of who ends up footing the bill for the costs of care. 
Unfortunately, in many cases, it is seniors and their families who struggle to pay for nursing home costs. Seniors can go through their entire life savings very quickly as they try to pay the bills for their care. This can be avoided by working with a Connecticut nursing home planning lawyer who can offer assistance getting care costs paid for when nursing home care is necessary.
Nirenstein, Horowitz & Associates has provided assistance to many families to make advanced plans to protect their life savings and not lose it when someone in the family must go into a nursing home.
How do Nursing Home Costs Get Paid For?
There are a few different options for paying for nursing home costs when nursing home care becomes necessary.
One option is to try to get Medicare or private health insurance providers to pay for a nursing home. This is an option only in very limited circumstances. Both Medicare and insurers typically restrict coverage for nursing home care to short stays in nursing homes for skilled medical services, if care is even covered at all. This could mean, for example, that Medicare will pay for you to stay in a nursing home for a week after surgery if your bandages need to be changed but will not pay for anything beyond that week if you require longer term care.
Another option is to use long-term care insurance to pay for nursing home costs. Unfortunately, most people do not have long-term care insurance. It can be very costly to buy, and it may not necessarily cover you when you need it.
Medicaid is another option, and is generally the best option for those who can qualify for coverage. NPR reports that Medicaid pays for approximately 40 percent of all long-term care in nursing homes throughout the United States. Medicaid can pay for nursing home bills in full, but the problem is that it can be difficult for seniors to qualify for as a result of asset limits. If you have a nest egg that you built up after working for your whole life, you could be forced to spend down that nest egg to get Medicaid to pay for nursing home care. This is an undesirable outcome that no one wants to have to deal with.
A final option for paying for nursing home costs is to pay privately. If you do not qualify for Medicaid due to having too many assets or too high an income, paying out-of-pocket could be the only option that you have available to you if other insurance like Medicare won’t pay. You could spend all you have put away, and even be forced to sell property. Finally, once you have spent down assets and have no money left, you’ll qualify for Medicaid… but by then your chance to leave money to loved ones will be gone.
Qualifying for Medicaid to Pay for Nursing Home Costs
You can protect assets by working with a Medicaid planning lawyer who can assist you in getting nursing home costs covered. This means you don’t have to spend down all of your wealth if you happen to get sick enough to need nursing home care.
The process of protecting your wealth is a complicated process, because there are strict rules designed to stop you from gaming the system and getting Medicaid unless you truly need it. Nirenstein, Horowitz & Associates can assist you in making use of the legal tools that will help you to get Medicaid to pay your nursing home costs. You should contact an experienced attorney for assistance as soon as you can, because starting early is essential to protecting the maximum value of your assets.
Getting Help from A Connecticut Nursing Home Planning Lawyer
Nirenstein, Horowitz & Associates will assist you in finding ways to pay for nursing home costs and protect your wealth. To learn more about the process of Medicaid planning, join us for a free seminar. You can also get personalized advice from a Connecticut Medicaid planning lawyer. Give us a call at 860-548-1000 or contact us online to find out more about the ways in which our legal team can assist you in protecting your financial security in case you must go into a nursing home.
Mr. Nirenstein is licensed to practice before the courts of the State of Connecticut and the United States District Court. He is a member of the Connecticut and Hartford County Bar Associations, and the Estate and Probate, Elder Law, Business Law and Real Estate Sections of the Connecticut Bar Association.
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