Hello, I’m Christopher Lavin, an attorney with the Lavin Law Group. We are an elder law firm here in Lebanon, Ohio. Elder law is helping folks to long term care and medical emergencies. And, a big portion of that is navigating the Medicaid system. So a lot of folks will, when they apply for Medicaid, they want to know how does Medicaid review those assets and how do you protect those assets that’s at risk.
So even in good health, I unfortunately seem to pick on the client. Because, I have to play for the worst, hope for the best. And, I’ll put that client in a medicaid situation, a nursing home or long term care situation, not to be insensitive, but simply to show them exactly what Medicaid would allow them to keep and what Medicaid would direct them to spend.
And they have a good idea of what’s at risk. And then they have a good idea if it makes sense or how to how to plan for that. In good health. We have more options than we have in the past. Insurance is an option. Nothing is still an option. But more commonly, trusts are becoming an option because in the old days, really, we didn’t help you or or know what we were doing.
And the biggest thing folks would do in that situation, which is give everything away. That still has a place in the plan, but it’s not perfect. It can be tax liabilities, tax issues, there can be liability issues. So you have to be careful. So, we don’t use trusts the same way as the Kennedy’s. But what they have done is given us a place to hold things.
Now, there’s as many types of trust as cars in a parking lot. So when you talk to your advisors about certain trusts planning, ask a lot of questions and be specific. And if you’re asking about trusts in regards to long term care, they should be discussing various forms of irrevocable trusts with you. The word irrevocable. It’s not perfect.
It does put a limitation on you. But we’ve been using these trust for at least two decades now and they become a lot more flexible. But irrevocable trusts are the types of trust that you use for asset preservation.