Spousal impoverishment for the community spouse who stays at home when the other spouse is in a skilled nursing home is always an important issue. Members of the U.S. House house of representatives have taken a step toward extending some of the financial protections provided to seniors receiving long-term care in home or community settings.…
The following message was released on November 30, 2018, by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), a division of the Department of Health and Human Services, announced actions that will bolster nursing home oversight and improve transparency in order to ensure that facilities are staffed adequately to provide high-quality long term care. These…
Interesting Facts About Long Term Care In Florida Florida nursing homes are serving increasingly diverse patient base and providing a greater variety of acute care, rehabilitative and convalescent services that cannot be delivered elsewhere. Key Facts There are 683 licensed nursing homes in Florida, representing approximately 83,587 beds (Souce: Agency for Health Care Administration) The estimated…
You may be afraid of losing your house to the nursing home, the State, or otherwise, if you must enter a nursing home and apply for Medicaid benefits to pay for the nursing home. While this fear may be well-founded in the vast majority of states, transferring the home to your children is usually not…
Often our clients seeking Medicaid benefits to help pay for nursing home care, or other long term care, are concerned about financial protections available to the stay at home spouse. They want to know how many assets or how much income the healthy spouse will be allowed to keep to ensure the financial well-being of…
Medicare is supposed to provide up to 35 hours a week of home care to those who qualify, but many Medicare patients with chronic conditions are being wrongly denied such care, according to Kaiser Health News. For a variety of reasons, many home health care agencies are simply telling patients they are not covered. Medicare…
Americans spent nearly $163 billion for long-term care in skilled nursing facilities and continuing care retirement communities (CCRC) in 2016, according to a recent U.S. Government report. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ National Health Care Spending report for 2016, published December 27, 2017, in Health Affairs, found that total healthcare spending in the…
In 2018, Social Security recipients will get their largest cost of living increase in benefits since 2012, but the additional income will likely be largely eaten up by higher Medicare Part B premiums. Cost of living increases are tied to the consumer price index, and an upturn in inflation rates and gas prices means recipients…
Have you or a loved one been denied Medicare-covered services because you’re “not improving” or “not making progress”? Many health care providers are still not aware that Medicare is required to cover skilled nursing and home care even if a patient is not showing improvement. If you are denied coverage based on this outdated standard,…
Immediate annuities can be a useful tool to protect the spouse of a nursing home resident who applies for Medicaid. These types of annuities allow the nursing home resident to spend down assets and give the spouse a guaranteed income. Immediate annuities are an available planning tool in the State of Florida. Medicaid is the…