Q: Will Medicare cover in-home nursing?

A: On a very limited basis. I would strongly recommend looking into Medicaid Planning for additional in-home financial help.

Medicaid planning is a way to protect people’s assets from the threat of long-term care expenses. Most of my clients are between 65 and 90, own their own house and have between $50,000 and $750,000 worth of assets on top of the house. What many people don’t realize is exactly how expensive long term care expenses can be – the average costs of a skilled nursing facility, in Florida, is about 9K per month. So someone can be solid middle class or upper middle class, have saved their whole life and think that they’ll have plenty of money for whatever happens only to suffer a stroke, major heart attack or get an Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s diagnosis and need help with their activities of daily living. If they have this six-figure per year expense, most Floridians would lose everything – and many do.

Unbeknownst to most people – Medicare does not pay skilled nursing home expenses after 100 days. Medicare also has a very limited home help benefit.

An elder care attorney, who handles medicaid planning, is able to legally and ethically protect people’s assets to get them qualified for Medicaid. Medicaid, unlike Medicare, has an excellent long-term care benefit. This helps them supplement their lifestyle with their own assets (to improve the quality of their life while alive) and make it more likely that they will have something to pass onto their heirs after they pass away. Medicaid will pay for some home-health care, a significant portion of an Assisted Living Facility bill (if the ALF accepts Medicaid) and nearly 100% of a nursing home bill (all nursing homes in Florida must accept Medicaid as part of their licensing requirements).

What is amazing to me is how few people know that elder care attorney can assist with Medicaid planning - or even that this Medicaid long-term care benefit can become available to them prior to being forced into poverty.

My website is: www.ElderNeedsLaw.com and I help people all over Florida.