Ohio veterans’ benefits from the Aid & Attendance pension can help pay for in-home care, assisted living or a nursing home. Get the assistance of an Ohio elder law attorney to qualify for these little-used VA benefits.

Depending on their long-term care needs, assets and income, some veterans can qualify for up to $2,019 a month to pay for long-term care services through the Aid & Attendance pension program for wartime veterans. The federal government recently increased benefit rates for the veterans’ pension program and the Aid & Attendance benefit, even though it can increase a vet’s pension by almost $700 per month, is not taken advantage of by many veterans who qualify for it.  This substantial income source can be of huge benefit to many veterans who need to assisted living or nursing home facilities to meet their long-term care needs.

Assisted living and nursing homes offer different levels of care; choosing the right option depends on your loved one’s medical needs. If your loved one may need Ohio Medicaid, eligibility planning with the assistance of an Ohio elder law firm needs to be done far in advance to avoid penalty for assets.

Nobody wants to end up in a nursing home. Nobody wants to put their parents in a nursing home. Nursing homes have a bad reputation for neglecting or even abusing their residents. However, not all nursing homes treat their residents poorly – in fact most do their best to treat residents well – and sometimes a nursing home is the right solution for an aging individual.

Under Ohio’s elder laws, asset protection planning can protect your home in case you must enter a nursing home and must qualify for Medicaid. An asset protection strategy developed by a Dayton or Ohio Medicaid lawyer can prevent Medicaid from claiming your home to reimburse nursing home costs.

What happens to your home if you have to enter a nursing home and qualify for Medicaid? The answer to that depends on what your situation is and what kind of planning you’ve done ahead of time. If you appropriately planned for the possibility of needing Medicaid, an asset protection plan involving trusts and other asset protection tools can probably safeguard your home and other assets from Medicaid by taking advantage of Ohio’s elder laws. An asset protection is the best way to make sure you won’t have to sell your home to pay for nursing home expenses.

Proper Ohio Medicaid planning eliminates the need to give away assets to qualify for Medicaid. Asset protection plans from Ohio elder law attorneys enable Medicaid applicants to keep their assets and avoid a penalty for assets transferred or given away during Medicaid’s 5-year look-back.

Since many people fail to plan for the possibility that they might need Medicaid to pay for nursing home costs and other long-term care, it’s not uncommon for these folks to find themselves in the difficult position of having too many assets to qualify for Medicaid. Unfortunately, rather than contact a qualified Ohio elder law attorney’s office, they try to qualify for Medicaid on their own by giving away their home and other assets. This often puts them in a more difficult situation because Medicaid looks back over the past five years of asset history for each applicant and Medicaid will deny eligibility for a number of months equal to the total value of current or improperly transferred assets divided by the average monthly cost of nursing home care in Ohio. There is no maximum ineligibility period.

In Ohio, Medicaid spend down purchases are a common way to reduce assets when they are too high to qualify for Medicaid. Ohio Medicaid planning with an experienced and knowledgeable Ohio elder law lawyer can avoid the need for spend-down purchases.

Unfortunately, not everyone plans ahead for the possibility that they will need to qualify for Medicaid to pay for nursing home expenses or in-home care. This leaves many people with a need to spend their assets in order to qualify for Medicaid because Ohio Medicaid limits the total amount of assets an applicant can have. Any assets above that amount can disqualify the applicant for a number of months equal to the value of the excess assets divided by the average cost of a nursing home in Ohio.

In Ohio, elder law attorneys commonly say that asset limits for VA benefits are $80,000 for a couple and $50,000 a single vet or widowed spouse of a vet. But qualifications for veterans’ benefits are actually more complicated than that.

The actual asset limitation figures are not set in stone and depend on several factors. While the $80,000 and $50,000 figures are a beginning point, the claimant’s age and life expectancy will also play a significant role. The older a claimant is and the fewer years he or she is expected to live, the lower the asset threshold will be. The VA assumes that individuals closer to death will need fewer assets to get them through their final days and that any extra assets can be used to fund their care needs.

In Ohio, elder law lawyers can usually help a veteran’s widowed spouse increase her/his chances of qualifying for veterans’ spouse benefits. Veterans’ survivor benefits are also available for surviving minor children of deceased veterans.

Unfortunately, not all spouses of veterans are aware that they have survivor benefits available to them. Often, veterans’ benefits were a subject that the spouse left up to the veteran while he or she was alive and after their death didn’t think to ask about them when they had need of them.

VA benefits eligibility — Applicants must qualify for pension benefits first, then Homebound and Aid & Attendance. Vets and spouses can receive veterans’ benefits for assisted living, nursing home and in-home care. An Ohio elder law attorney can help you qualify.

When applying for veterans’ benefits, an applicant must first qualify for basic pension benefits. If an applicant qualifies for basic pension benefits but has additional needs, such as in-home medical care, assistance with daily activities, or nursing home costs, they can then qualify for additional benefits through the Homebound and Aid & Attendance programs.

In Ohio, elder law attorneys commonly transfer ownership of clients’ assets to irrevocable trusts to protect them from Medicaid, nursing homes, creditors and lawsuits — the clients control them but don’t own them, so they can’t be taken away.

An irrevocable trust is a legal entity created for the purpose of holding and managing assets that cannot be changed or dissolved once created. A revocable trust, by contrast, is similar but it can be changed or dissolved by the grantor (the person who created the trust) at any time during his or her life.

The main advantage that an irrevocable trust offers clients of Ohio elder law attorneys is that because the client no longer owns any assets transferred to the trust, the trust assets cannot be claimed by Medicaid for nursing home expenses.

Your Ohio Medicaid eligibility may be threatened if you own too much life insurance. Avoid eligibility issues through proper Medicaid estate planning with an Ohio elder law lawyer.

Many people have life insurance policies as part of their estate, so it’s important to understand how they may affect your eligibility should you need to apply for Medicaid at any time. To begin with, any group or individual term insurance policies have no cash value and are exempt from Medicaid, so you don’t need to worry about those.