No. Medicare is health insurance for people over sixty-five.

Your home, jointly held property, gifted assets, bank accounts, securities and insurance policies will all be used to pay for nursing home care. Most or all of your assets will be spent. A single person could be left with only $4,000 in Rhode Island.

Typically, a medical emergency triggers a stay at a rehabilitation center or skilled nursing home following hospitalization. Following admission to a hospital–after a stay of at least three days (which can’t be “for observation)–and upon transfer to a nursing home, your health insurance, which includes Medicare, will typically pay toward your care for a limited period of time, not to exceed one hundred days. Your coverage may also be supplemented by health insurance such as Blue Chip for Medicare, United Health Care, or other supplemental health insurance plans that are available.

However, insurance will only cover for “skilled care.” Once the patient has been determined to be “long-term care,” the insurer will stop paying.

Transferring assets to children can be a huge mistake. For example, you no longer control your assets. If a child is sued, your assets may be taken. If a child gets divorced, their spouse may be entitled to a share of those funds. Or, if a child dies, your funds may not go to individuals you have specified. Most important, transfers or gifts are subject to a five-year look-back period. If a nursing home resident files a Medical Assistance application before the five years has passed, a “penalty period” will be imposed. The applicant will be ineligible for Medical Assistance for a period of time determined by the size of the gift.

Many seniors believe that asset protection can be achieved by putting everything into a revocable trust. This is not true. All monies in revocable trusts are deemed available for nursing home care and are not protected.

It’s not too late. There are ways to safeguard a lifetime of savings and property, even if someone is already privately paying in a nursing home. We can help you save your assets.

Unless long-term care insurance was previously purchased, few options are available to assist in financing nursing home care. The majority of individuals in this situation turn to Medicaid. In Rhode Island, the program is called Medical Assistance.

Preplanning is an important action to assure that assets are protected. If someone is not currently in a nursing home, pre-planning can be done to be sure their home and life savings are protected if nursing home is needed in the future. By not taking the proper steps to protect your life savings, home, and other assets, all could be used to pay for nursing home care.

The Medicaid application process is lengthy and cumbersome. Most people are unfamiliar with Medicaid regulations and the recent regulatory changes associated with them. We are here to help you protect your assets. You provide us with the documentation, and we do all of the paperwork and we’ll help you maneuver through the Medicaid red tape.

No. All nursing home residents should be treated the same. If Medical Assistance recipients are being discriminated against by being treated differently, the nursing home could be legally liable. Generally, most staff members don’t even know who is paying privately and who is on Medical Assistance.