MassHealth/Medicaid Planning

MassHealth (Nursing Home) Planning

The Law Office of Kimberly L. Kelly, LLC designs and employs legal strategies to preserve assets that our clients worked most of their lives to accumulate, anticipating the costs of future long-term care.  This includes our clients’ homes, other real estate, and liquid assets. Strategies for preserving assets include:

• Irrevocable income only trusts

• Immediate annuities

• Life estate deeds and other real estate transfers

• Conversion of vacation property into productive business property

• The purchase of long-term care insurance

• Planned gifting strategy

• Utilizing exceptions and exclusions within the MassHealth regulations such as caretaker child and disabled child exceptions

Our attorneys know that the thought of long-term care costs can cause stress and anxiety for seniors and their families. In Massachusetts, nursing home care can cost between $100,000 - $150,000 per year. While Medicare and supplemental health insurance plans may cover most of the medical expenses of an acute illness, they provide little or no coverage for nursing home care.

Applications for MassHealth and Long-Term Care coverage

For a client who has a loved one in a nursing home, the MassHealth process can seem overwhelming.   Our attorneys are here to assist you with all of the issues relating to the process, from the application to a fair hearing.   

MassHealth is a state-run program which is financed in part by the federal government.   MassHealth is a “needs”-based program and therefore applicants must qualify financially and clinically.  Once qualified, MassHealth will cover most, if not all, the costs of a nursing home and certain medical and prescription costs.  There are two general requirements to financial eligibility—income and assets.   How MassHealth treats each requirement depends upon marital status and living situation.

Let us assist you as you navigate through the complex system.