St. Petersburg Long-Term Care Planning Attorney

Long-term care expenses hang like a cloud over many Florida residents. The cost of a private room in a nursing home is well over $100,000 a year. Having worked hard, our clients want to provide for their loved ones, and expensive long-term care puts all of that saving in jeopardy.

Contact Fisher & Wilsey, P.A. to discuss long-term care planning as part of a holistic estate plan. The prohibitive costs of skilled nursing care should not prevent you from enjoying retirement and ensuring your loved ones have what they need if you become incapacitated or terminally ill. A St. Petersburg long-term care planning attorney can use different strategies for protecting your hard-earned assets.

Medicaid Planning

Medicaid is one way to pay for long term care. However, Florida has eligibility requirements, so even someone of modest means could be disqualified. Families can be left with an unappealing choice: spend down assets or wait years before they can move an elderly family member into a nursing home.

Careful Medicaid planning is one way to ensure that a client qualifies for this government health insurance. For example, we can review which assets are exempt or whether you can move non-exempt assets to a trust where they will not be counted against you for eligibility purposes.

Medicaid planning is perfectly legal, and there is nothing disreputable about maximizing your chances of qualifying for this program. Our firm can use supplemental needs trusts or other vehicles in a lawful manner to shield assets from counting against you.

No one should engage in Medicaid planning on their own. The rules change regularly, and one mistake not only jeopardizes Medicaid eligibility but your family’s future as well.

Disability and Long-Term Care Insurance

Another strategy is to purchase insurance to protect against the risk of disability and age. For example, you might purchase disability insurance which can cover gaps in income when a disability prevents you from working.

Long-term care insurance can pay for in-home care or even time in a skilled nursing facility when the insured becomes disabled. This is private insurance which you can buy from a broker.

There are many products on the market, but not all are the same. In fact, some long-term care insurance might not be available when you need it most, or it becomes so expensive that the insured drops it.

Let’s review if insurance is a useful part of your estate plan. We can then compare policies, advise you on choices, and help submit the paperwork.

Financial Planning

Reducing taxes and shielding assets from creditors are also strategies for increasing the funds available for paying long-term care expenses. A attorney can use legal tax planning strategies to preserve wealth, which can become available to pay for future care, if necessary.

Call Us to Learn More

Our clients benefit from early planning with a skilled attorney. Call Fisher & Wilsey today to talk about your needs with one of our St. Petersburg long-term care planning attorneys. We are a multi-generational law firm which understands the importance of preserving wealth for the future.