What About Giving Assets Away?

This is the single most expensive mistake families make, and it is usually made on good advice from the wrong professional.

Medicaid looks back five years from your application date at every transfer made for less than fair market value. For every $10,645 transferred, you are ineligible for one month of benefits — and the penalty period does not begin until you are otherwise eligible and have applied. A $100,000 gift to a child creates roughly nine months of ineligibility that starts precisely when care is needed and the money is gone.

Only a licensed attorney can advise you on Medicaid planning. Contact us before you transfer anything.

Will Medicaid Take My Home After I Die?

Usually not — but only if the planning is done. This is the part most families never hear about until a letter arrives after the funeral.

Florida is required to recover what Medicaid paid on behalf of anyone who received benefits at age 55 or older. After death, the state files a claim against the estate, and after a few years of care that claim can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Families who did a fine job getting a parent approved, and did nothing else, routinely find the house has to be sold.

Contact us to review your deed and your will together — they need to point the same direction.

Does a Living Trust Protect My Assets from Medicaid?

No, and this is the most common and most costly misunderstanding we encounter.

A revocable living trust is a valuable document — it avoids probate, plans for incapacity, and keeps your affairs private. But because you keep the power to revoke it, federal law counts everything inside as available to you for eligibility purposes. Florida law also allows a revocable trust to be reached to pay estate obligations when the probate estate falls short, and the statute expressly names Medicaid recovery claims among them.

When asset protection is the goal, the instrument is an irrevocable trust. Assets properly transferred to an irrevocable Medicaid Asset Protection Trust are not counted as available resources, and they pass outside probate at death, beyond estate recovery’s reach. Once the five-year look-back has run, the transfer into the trust no longer creates a penalty period either.

Contact us to find out which your situation calls for

Will Medicaid Pay for Assisted Living or Care at Home?

Yes. Many families assume Medicaid means a nursing home. In Florida, the Statewide Medicaid Managed Care Long-Term Care program also covers care delivered in assisted living facilities, adult family care homes, and in your own home.

Two things to know. The program pays for care services, not room and board in an assisted living facility. And it is not an entitlement — there is a waitlist, and applicants are prioritized by a needs-based score rather than by how long they have waited, which makes the initial screening important to get right. Contact us to talk through the process.

Is It Too Late if My Parent Is Already in a Facility?

No. Crisis planning is a large part of what we do.

Planning five or more years ahead protects the most at the lowest cost — every option is open, assets can be moved into an irrevocable trust, and the look-back clock starts running. But most families come to us in a crisis: a stroke, a fall, or a discharge planner calling to say a decision is needed this week.

What is lost by waiting is options, not everything. If someone in your family is being discharged from a hospital or rehab facility in the next few weeks, contact us today.