Questions About Elder Care Attorneys

Miss Ripper

I'm exhausted from not sleeping at night because I contacted an elder care attorney and they now want almost $9,000.00 to arrange things like Medicaid application, getting the house/cars/etc. into only my name. We already both had our Power of Attorneys, Wills and Five Wishes taken care of. My question is this - is this a reasonable amount for an attorney to charge for such services and can you not apply for Medicaid yourself?

For starters, they want me to spend $100,000.00 on things for the house or to buy a new car, none of which I need to do. It's to make us poor enough to apply for Medicaid. To me, this is simply ridiculous. I checked with the nursing home, should my DH ever need to be in one, and they charge $9,365.00 per month. At this point, my stepson and myself can take care of him here at home. He's still feeding himself, is not incontinent, and functions well with a bit of help from us. He does hallucinate and his mind is most always back at the farm he grew up on in Kansas. He's 82 now, but still recognizes us most of the time. He cannot drive or tend to anything requiring cognition, of course.

I guess my question is this - would you pay an attorney to tend to things like getting it all in my name at this price? Have you had experience with elder attorneys? My stepson moved in with us to take care of his Dad and he thinks we could do all of these things ourselves. 

Some days, I feel like I should just pay the exorbitant fee and sign the papers to have it all over and done with. The reason I don't is because we don't know if DH will ever even have to be in this nursing home. Is it inevitable? And if it is, will doing all this now still be good months or years from now?

It costs me $250.00 to call this attorney, even if I only talk ten minutes. It's the same price to talk one hour and then the price escalates. Having already spent $500.00 in two phone calls, (one was 10 minutes) I hesitate to even call her to answer the questions I have about the papers she has sent me to sign. I have to send about 100 copies of various things we have to pay regularly and have not had the energy to prepare them all yet. My deadline to return all of thi will be April 16th.

ladyzetta

Dear Miss Ripper.

That seems like a awful lot.  I do know you have to spend down that was something I did not have to worry about. I had a lot of my dealings with Senior Services no fee it's a state agency. I had a attorney who gave me free legal advice. I did pay her for drawing up our will and for helping me get POA. In all it was less then $1000.00. My suggestion is maybe start with Senior Services and see if they can answer your questions. There is a lot of members here hopefully you will get some better options. It's nice that your Stepson is there to help you as you know you can not do this alone. Hugs Zetta  

Miss Ripper

ladyzetta - Thank you for answering my question. You are blessed to have an attorney who gave you free advice. Since I am 81, the amount I have to spend down was hard earned and carefully saved over the years by my DH and myself, so parting with it to qualify for aid we do not actually need right now just seems ludicrous to me. How am I supposed to live after that money is gone and his incomes are going to a care home?

My stepson is 55 years old and he quit his job when I could no longer care for his Dad by myself. It was difficult for him to do and it's difficult for him to see his Dad deteriorating, but I am so thankful for his help. I could no longer handle everything by myself.

ladyzetta

I Am glad you got help. I had to place my DH in a MC facility, he was there for 2 years before he passed away. I took care of him at home for 5 years and it was way more then I could handle. He was 89 and a big man. I am one of those people who had no problem qualifying for medicate. I think you and your stepson will do a good job taking care of your DH. If I had had help at home I would have been able to keep my DH home. You sound like a real good caregiver. I lacked a lot of patience. Hugs Zetta

Miss Ripper

ladyzetta - If you took care of your DH at home by yourself for five years, you absolutely had to be a good caregiver. I've been at this for four years now, but my DH wasn't all that bad until a couple of years ago. He started out with MCI and it has progressively moved into moderate to severe dementia. Caregiving is hard for us all. I've only had help since the first of December, so I know how hard it is to do alone.

Crushed

Here is one lawyer's opinion FIND ANOTHER LAWYER

The billing for a phone call is outrageous to the point of being unethical

ladyzetta

I was hoping that Crushed, would respond to this. He's the one who has the answers.   

Ed1937

Just to give you an idea about our costs, he fully made the substantial changes we needed to our trust, took care of our real estate, changed beneficiaries, took her name off the assets allowed by law, gave us an education on Medicaid, and provided written literature to provide answers to questions we might have. We have called him three times with questions, and there was no charge. Total was just over $1,000.00. If we should want him to handle the Medicaid application, and follow it through to the end, there would be an additional cost of just over $6,000.00. Oh, and also durable power of attorney to cover everything for both our daughter and me.

I don't remember who it was, but one of our members found a BIG difference in cost between CELAs for the same services.

Quilting brings calm

To begin with google nursing home Medicaid along with your state.  Then find the part that talks about married couples where only one of them needs Medicaid. It should tell you how much in assets you would get to keep after your spouse goes on Medicaid.  You should get to keep the house, your car, your income and a certain amount of assets ... so that you can provide for yourself.  You can pre-pay funeral costs for both of you. Anything above that amount would need to be spent either on your husbands care or on your own needs before he can go on Medicaid. That’s why the lawyer is telling you to spend money on the house or car before you apply for Medicaid for your spouse. 

What you can’t do is give away assets to your stepson or others in order to hide it from Medicaid. They will go back five years to find what you’ve given away. 

So do house repairs or maintenance that will need done during your expected time there. Roof, siding, windows, flooring, furnace, a/c type stuff,  trade in an old car for one that will last you for several years.  No, don’t waste it on stuff you won’t need - but get stuff done you will need.

Find out if it’s ok if you sell the house and get a smaller one if  that is what you feel  you will need, etc. 

then accept that you will be paying for some months in memory care or a nursing home if the assets are still over the limit.

FYI - when my Mom was in rehab, the social worker there told me that she could help me fill out the Medicaid application if we were going that route.  Check  into senior services, dept of  aging, etc in your state. 

Miss Ripper

Crushed - Thank you for the opinion from someone who actually knows the answer for certain. I needed to hear that.

Miss Ripper

Ed1937 - Thanks for your information. It is very enlightening. Several years ago, only because we were aging, we had our regular attorney do our Medical and Durable POWs for both of us. They also went over our wills, which we've had for years and said they are fine. I was surprised at how little that cost. Therefore, the costs I'm being presented with for elderly legal help just blew me out of the water, so to speak.

Miss Ripper

Quilting brings calm - Thank you for all that information. Most of it I already knew from researching all this stuff and talking to our accountant. But your explanation makes it crystal clear and I appreciate the help.

Here's something all of you can relate to. My office (I'm a writer) is in a loft area above the great room and my husband just put his coat on to leave (again). My stepson is explaining to him that he already is at home. I can hear every word clearly. We go through this daily, often several times. As you know, this is very distracting when one is trying to make sense while writing something.

I'm going to take the advice of Crushed and send these unsigned documents back to the attorney and either do it ourselves or find a different attorney.

Jane Smith

I’m not an attorney, but I have three in my immediate family, and good lawyers for myself and my mother.

Do not pay that one a penny and find another one!  That billing is just not right. 

Run, don’t walk out the door!

Joe C.

Miss Ripper, When I was looking for an Elder Law Attorney 7 years ago I got estimates that ranged from $1,500 to $6,000 to do the same amount of work, (Wills, DPOAs, Trust & Health Care Proxies). The attorney that quoted the $1,500 spent the most time explaining the plus & minus of different type of trust, the income requirements for Medicaid and was the best listener about our particular situation. I alway felt that the higher priced attorneys were not listening to my thoughts and just wanted to push one package of of documents regardless of the individual circumstances. 

I have no idea what a Medicaid application cost but my experience tells me that there is probably attorneys that would provided guidance and at a lower cost.

banpaeng

darn*, I am planning to start the attorney stuff this next week.  Thanks for all the info and if Mr. Crushed is licensed in Texas, let me know.

Crushed

I am not an elder care lawyer but for  Wills a complex revocable trust, powers of attorney and transfer of title to the house  The cost in high cost Montgomery country Md was $5000

Miss Ripper

Joe C - Thank you. We have had our Durable Powers of Attorney and Wills for years, done by our regular attorney, so those aren't even involved in this $9,000.00 bill. Where I live, I called the three best attorneys in the area and none of them do this elderly care business. They all recommended this female attorney in a town 100 miles from here, though she comes to a nearby area often to see clients. Apparently, she is the only act in town. Therein lies my quandary. But the consensus is that this is way too high, so I will have to check with Social Services or whatever agency would know in my town in Colorado. I'm on the western slope, so Denver is out of the question.

Miss Ripper

I would also like to know if Crushed is licensed in Colorado. If he is, he's my guy.

Miss Ripper

Crushed - All I really need is transfer of the title to the house into just my name and this attorney wants me to buy a Medicaid approved annuity, which I know nothing about. I've had the other stuff taken care of years ago and they've been checked by an attorney and are fine the way they are written.

aod326

Hi Miss Ripper. You've had lots of great input, just another couple of small thoughts from me. One positive thing to have come out of COVID is the increase in virtual meetings with professionals. You could use the services of a CELA in any other part of CO if they'll do Zoom consultations. Of course the documents can then be mailed for signature.

Also, to answer your question as to whether it's worth it, seeing as you don't even know if you'll need Medicaid because he may not be placed in MC. No, it isn't. I had imagined that applying for Medicaid was a sort of "pre-approval" type thing - I'd thought why not have it in place for if/when I need it. When you apply though, you are applying for immediate acceptance. (Immediate from when you're accepted onto Medicaid, which can be as much as six months after you start the process.) Basically, if you apply, and he doesn't need it, you've wasted the time and money.

Best of luck.

Crushed

1) elder care work for caretakers is routinely done remotely. The complicated issue with whether the PWD is competent, but anyone can do that after the documents are drafted. 

2) personally I am a Science based safety regulatory specialist.   If it kills, cripples, maims, burns, sinks, crashes, or causes cancer I've worked on it.   I've trained physicians in health care risk management and did my Law school dissertation on safety in mental hospitals.   But I hired an elder care lawyer for myself.  

3)  Medicaid is very simple.  If you have $500,000 in liquid assets (or pension equivalent) apart from your home. and or 500 k lifetime limit of LTC insurance available for care of your LO  and the same for yourself you are unlikely to need Medicaid.  This is about  8% of the population. Everyone else needs medicaid planning.  This can also be done long distance.   DW's care in MC costs over $10,000 a month.  Do not fool yourself.  Take a good honest look at your finances.

Miss Ripper

aod326 wrote:

When you apply though, you are applying for immediate acceptance. (Immediate from when you're accepted onto Medicaid, which can be as much as six months after you start the process.) Basically, if you apply, and he doesn't need it, you've wasted the time and money.

Best of luck.

Thank you for your input. It's very helpful to me. Like you, I thought when you applied for Medicaid, it would be for when you needed it, not immediately. I can't afford to waste money or time at this point in my life.

Miss Ripper

Crushed wrote:

3)  Medicaid is very simple.  If you have $500,000 in liquid assets (or pension equivalent) apart from your home. and or 500 k lifetime limit of LTC insurance available for care of your LO  and the same for yourself you are unlikely to need Medicaid. 

I do not have that kind of money to spend on care for my DH or myself. We are comfortable for our age with what we have saved, but not wealthy. I talked to my accountant this morning and she said Social Services will do all this regarding Medicaid for free. She told me to make an appointment to go over it with them and she will go with me. She is not charging me anything.

JJAz

"I do not have that kind of money to spend on care for my DH or myself. We are comfortable for our age with what we have saved, but not wealthy. I talked to my accountant this morning and she said Social Services will do all this regarding Medicaid for free. She told me to make an appointment to go over it with them and she will go with me. She is not charging me anything."

  

Yes, they will do it all for free, but they will not advise you on any innovative (yet legal) ideas to preserve as much of your wealth as possible.  That's what an Elder Care Attorney or Medicaid Planner can do for you.  Your objective should be to preserve wealth and income for your own retirement once your husband is gone.  Many of these techniques (like a Medicaid Annuity) require you to have them completed well in advance of applying for and needing Medicaid Long Term Care.  All Elder Care Attorneys are NOT created equal.  You should be able to work with an attorney over the phone, so one in Denver would work out like Crushed said.  Don't give up.  Keep looking.  It's worth it.

  

jfkoc

Just a comment...we only have 3 certified in our state.

Just another comment....so much is virtual today I think you could hire anyone but do be certain your attorney knows your states laws etc.

This might be of interest;

https://www.tn-elderlaw.com/free-resources/resources/myths-about-medicaid

Jo C.

Getting advice is one thing, being taken advantage of is quite another; I am sorry this happened.  I did the Medicaid applications for two LOs.  It was not difficult.  The hardest part is coming up with the needed documents; wedding certificates, death certificates, divorce decrees if that was part of the applicant's life, military discharge papers, state photo ID, etc., etc.  NOTE:  If you did have an attorney make application to Medicaid for you, well; you would still have to come up with all that paperwork yourself.  After that, it is simply a matter of filling out multiple pages of paperwork which is not that hard.  Also, having an attorney does not get the application processed any faster than if you had done it,  Just be very, very sure you have filled out every blank and left no blank empty.  If the application is fully filled out and all paperwork included, that will get matters settled as fast as can be.  Many states if not most also have a time period by which Medicaid MUST process the applications.

If you want to see what the criteria is for Long Term Medicaid in your state, simply Google, Long Term Medicaid qualification criteria with name of state AND the current year, 2021, so you get  up to date advice.  Be sure you title it, Long Term Medicaid; it is different from regular Medicaid.

J.

Crushed

If you are poverty stricken this is good advice.  if you are not it is poor advice. Medicaid qualification is routinely done by social security lawyers .  They know the ins and outs of the local system.

You need an expert to get an increase for example in the minimum monthly mainetenance allowance based on your health https://www.medicaidplanningassistance.org/mmmna-definition/

Miss Ripper

JJaz - Yes, I have learned that about the annuities, etc. and what I am presently doing is getting the financial end of all of this in order now. I cannot work with this attorney over the phone, but I can work with one in Denver. My accountant did not like the way this entire presentation was presented because what they did was give themselves an out - saying that they will do all this, but there are no guarantees, etc. All I am doing is not working with this particular attorney. I intend to find another one elsewhere.

Miss Ripper

Crushed wrote:

  This can also be done long distance.   DW's care in MC costs over $10,000 a month.  Do not fool yourself.  Take a good honest look at your finances.

Crushed - That is exactly what I am doing - taking an honest look at our finances. The monthly care for my husband will be $9,365.00 per month. I am also talking to and working with the nursing home. However, it is my feeling that the way this particular attorney presented her plan to me is unacceptable and over priced. I cannot afford to pay her $250.00 each time we talk on the phone and she is 100 miles from where I live.

Miss Ripper

JoC - I have already made copies of everything this attorney listed for me to send to her so she could apply for Medicaid. It was an endless day of making copies of all the things you've listed. It's a shame they make applying for help while you are dealing with the loss of someone you love's mental capacity so difficult. In my opinion, this attorney is just very much over-priced and I can probably save a lot of money by looking elsewhere.

Thanks for your help, though. It is appreciated.

King Boo

I used CELA's as a starting point.  I had several to choose from.

The first was taking advantage of people and quoting insanely high fees.

The second one I hired and paid $2500 instead of the $14,000 the first had quoted.  And then proceeded to use him for other ongoing things.  A few projects were quoted on with a direct fee (i.e. a Trust for $5,000) but everything else was time based, at $350/hour.

Certified Elder Law Attorney's may be found at www.nelf.org

Many advertise elder law, few are experts.

Stakes are high here.  Money for care.  Find a second CELA opinion, well worth the fee.