I am financial POA for my mom. I think she will not qualify for Medicaid long term care as long as she owns stock, but the Medicaid office sent her a letter stating she did qualify for some coverage through Medicaid. I think I've finally got an idea about how much stock mom owns, and as her POA I am trying to figure out if I should wait till mom needs Medicaid to pay for her a skilled nursing facility to sell the stock. Mom thought that one of her stocks had greatly fallen in value, but it had not. For this reason I thought she had far less investments than she has. Mom was very disorganized and I've had to piece together her financial standing as statements arrive in the mail. I still don't know how many are going to the house we sold, but I have requested they be forwarded by the Post Office. Mom told me the name of her biggest investment and that one we are receiving communications to the correct address. She is now in a great MC facility that does not accept Medicaid. It is slowly chipping away at her savings, but she has enough cash & SS for about 2 and 1/2 more years at her current facility barring any major expenses. She is almost 86 and in relatively good health (no heart, kidney or lung problems, mild diabetes, wheel chair bound, very alert with a shockingly good memory, but mentally ill). Her mother lived till 92, but was walking and caring for her own needs (but living with us) until right before she turned 91. I know that usually people live about six months to two years in a nursing home and most people in our family followed that trend. She has been in her MC for 2 and 1/2 years as of this June. How do you figure out how to prepare for future financial needs? We also need to pre-pay for her funeral as she is demanding that and her stock would cover it with some left over. I know I need to contact a financial planner, but most I've heard of will not deal with anyone that has as little money and investments as mom has. Any advice on how to proceed?
My DH was his mom's executor and he refused to do a thing until she died. If he had been able to clarify some finer points when she was alive and still able to make decisions, it would have eased his workload a lot. As it was, he had to figure out WHO was the main person he needed to work with and it would have saved him a lot of grief and wasted time.
Find an attorney who can walk you through this. Sort as much paperwork as you can NOW. Pre-pay for her funeral, if you can (It's a huge pain to try to do this while you are in the early days of grieving).
I'd even go so far as to empty her home (with her permission) if she still has a lot of stuff in there.
Basically, doing as much as humanly possible while she still has the capacity to do so.
My mom insisted that she had 'plenty of money'. Well, acc to her POV, $50K WAS a lot of money. After paying for a few things, the whole estate just about broke even. There was a very small inheritance for us kids, but certainly nothing life altering.
If she is insistent on pre-paying now for a funeral, I would use from her current savings. I would leave the stock alone until she depletes her savings.
fwiw we had something “dividend” unusual for my mom’s LTC application. She had a really old Term Life Insurance policy, so ancient it was paid up and paid a dividend which was set to be reinvested. As it was Term, it had no cash value so Term is allowed to be kept & not cashed out like a Whole Life would be. And the face value was small, so did not have to do the change of beneficiary that most all States now require. But it did issue a 1099 for the dividend each year. So it was on the radar if a match up to IRS was to be done. This posed an issue…. Moms income was just abt at the maximum monthly amount allowed, so if that dividend which technically was income (although reinvested), it would take her over monthly max for the month the reinvestment done. How it was handled was to submit a statement with the 1099 form attached that the dividend was amortized income over 12 months. Did this for the initial application and the annual renewals. MVoila! all good!
As long as the caseworker has something that makes sense and it is organized, they will - I’ve found - find it all acceptable.
There will be renewals! I had zero idea this was a thing and had packed all the financial and legal PW into bins and then into storage. The renewal letter had a tight time frame for submission of a list of documents. Fwiw some items were the same ones submitted initially. Submission due in like 21 days from date of letter. Anyways it was long weekend. For the next year, I was totally ready. The fun never ends….
Another way to find out is to find her old tax filings as she more than likely had dividends paid or had RMDs or other taxable event. Taxes will have info as to who paid.
You don't apply for Medicaid till about 90 days before the money runs out, in my State. You must be spent down within that 90 days. I would wonder what is the "some coverage" she can get.