Traditional Medicaid Asset Preservation Planning enables the well spouse to protect some or all of the assets while allowing the spouse in the nursing home to obtain Medical Assistance to pay the cost of nursing home care. Post-Medicaid eligibility planning techniques enable the well spouse, should she predecease the spouse in the nursing home, to pass all of the assets to children without having to pay back any of the nursing home costs.
This type of traditional Medicaid planning, however, does nothing to preserve assets for the well spouse should the well spouse also require long term care in a nursing home sometime in the future. Indeed, many of the powerful asset preservation tools available to a married couple cannot be used to preserve assets for a single person seeking Medical Assistance benefits to cover nursing home costs.
Consequently, even where a couple has done asset protection planning when one of them enters a nursing home, after that individual has died, the well spouse remains at risk to lose all of her assets in the event she should require long term nursing home care.
William M. Gatesman has been a leader in developing asset preservation techniques for individuals and families facing the possibility of high long term care costs. Mr. Gatesman’s latest development in long term care asset preservation strategies is the Spousal Asset Preservation Trust.