You must have a good financial durable power of attorney to do nursing home and Medicaid planning

Attorney Tom Olsen: Robert, we were talking about protecting people's life savings from nursing homes. We have one qualifier, and that is they have to have a good durable power turning for financial affairs in place. When we do estate planning for people, that's standard procedure. When you do a Medicaid assessment for people, that's standard procedure. It allows the child to sign these Medicaid compliant tools that we're using to protect mom and dad's life savings from nursing homes, but it would also be required for them to take the next step, and that is get copies of bank statements to file the Medicaid application.

Attorney Robert Hidock: Absolutely, even including having to change ownership of like an annuity or a life insurance policy or cash one of those policies out, they definitely need that power of attorney. We accomplish that through your state planning and when we do Medicaid preplanning. Here at the Olsen Law Group, we're extremely proactive when it comes to preplanning, from our education in our workshops to preaching about a ladybird deed, which you do in your workshops as well.

In your workshop, it's avoiding probate, avoiding third-party creditors. In ours, the ladybird deed, since the helm is not accountable asset, but if you die and the home is in the estate, Medicaid can come after it for recovery. Especially now, we have a judge in Central Florida now that is very active and she will make every probate send a letter to Medicaid letting them know that someone died. It becomes imperative to protect that home with a ladybird deed

Tom: Exactly. A ladybird deed not only is a tool to avoid probate, it's a tool to avoid creditor claims when you pass away, including Medicaid, if they want to file a claim against your home because they paid for nursing over a period of time, using a ladybird deed can avoid that.

Robert: Absolutely.

[00:01:56] [END OF AUDIO]