medicaid elderly

Seniors Need to Prepare For the Future

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As you get older, there are important plans to consider. Preparing for retirement and planning enjoyable activities for your senior years, such as traveling or spending time with grandchildren, are essential.

It’s also wise to address potential future challenges, even though they may not be as pleasant to think about.

seniors

1. Incapacity

The first thing that you need to be ready for is the possibility of developing an illness or an injury that leaves you incapacitated or unable to make decisions on your own behalf or manage your own assets. Some common examples of this could include:

  • Dementia
  • Stroke
  • Head trauma
  • Degenerative illnesses

If you experience a medical condition that leaves you incapacitated, you will not be able to make medical decisions on your own behalf. If a tough choice has to be made, such as whether to keep you alive with a feeding tube or a ventilator, you will not be able to express your preferences regarding whether you want that care.

Your loved ones could be forced to make difficult decisions such as when to prolong your life, or how to balance quality of life versus quantity of life. This could lead to problems if they don’t know your preferences or if there is conflict among family members about what the best option is for moving forward.

You can plan and prepare for potential future incapacity, but it’s crucial to take steps before anything happens to you. Once you experience physical or mental impairment that prevents you from expressing your preferences, it will be too late to make those preparations. There are tools that you can use including:

  • A living will: A living will is a document that enables you to outline your preferences for extraordinary medical care in specific situations. It allows you to specify whether you want CPR, ventilator support, artificial nutrition, or treatments like antibiotics when facing a terminal progressive illness and nearing the end of your life. This ensures your wishes are known and respected.
  • A healthcare power of attorney: This document allows you to specify who should make decisions for you if you become unable to express your preferences and your living will doesn’t include instructions on the specific issue. You can name someone who you trust, and who you are certain would act in accordance with your values and make the types of decisions that would make sense for you.

It’s important to put these tools in place to prepare for potential future incapacity, ensuring your medical autonomy is protected. This also spares your loved ones from the difficult and potentially guilt-inducing task of making critical decisions without knowing your wishes.

Long-term care

Long-term care is something else you need to plan for. Many people end up needing either nursing home care or help from in-home care professionals. Getting either type of care can be extremely expensive.

You’ll need to make sure you have some plan in place to pay for nursing home or home healthcare services because Medicare does not provide any coverage for these kinds of situations. If you need custodial care, or routine help with activities of daily living, Medicare is not going to pay for you. Medicare only pays for a rehabilitative nursing home in limited circumstances, such as after a hospital stay where you need rehab for a period of time.

You can buy long-term care insurance to help you cover the costs of nursing care or home care, but policies are often imperfect. They may have strict rules on when you can qualify, low daily limits for how much the policy is going to pay, and very expensive premiums that price the policies out of your budget — especially if you did not purchase coverage early on.

There are other options, such as making a Medicaid plan. This is a plan that allows you to protect your assets, so you don’t have to spend them down before Medicaid kicks in. You may need to put this plan in place since Medicaid is a means-tested benefit and you cannot qualify for it if you have too many financial resources.

There is a five-year lookback period when you try to qualify for Medicaid that can preclude you from getting benefits if you transferred property or money in the five years before you are trying to qualify for Medicaid. You’ll need to make a Medicaid to protect the assets that you worked so hard for.

If you plan ahead, you should be able to ensure you can qualify for Medicaid and not impoverish yourself and leave your loved ones without an inheritance. Since Medicaid does pay for a nursing home, unlike Medicare, this can make all the difference in allowing you to get care while keeping your legacy secure.

The McGee Law Firm can help you to prepare for these two potential future risks as you get older. Give us a call at 817-899-3286 to learn more about how we can help you. 

Brandon McGee
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