Having an injury or illness sideline life plans as we age is never an expected or welcome event. This type of situation can completely upend usual living arrangements, suddenly thrusting one into the possibility of having to enter a long-term care facility. Unfortunately, the cost of living in such a facility can be astronomical. This very real sticker shock can send those in such situations into panic as visions of losing their estates run through their heads.
Unfortunately, this is a very real possibility. Medicare only pays for the hospital, rehabilitation, and therapy services. Once those are complete, an individual is responsible for the cost of long-term care. These costs are not cheap. A nursing home can run $11,000 a month or $132,000 every year. With such expenses, the estate you have built up for an entire lifetime can be wiped out in the span of just a few short years.
There is, however, a silver lining. At McHugh & Macri, our dedicated team of attorneys is passionate about assisting in elder estate matters. With our firm’s experience, we can develop methods or protecting estates so that they’re not drained by long-term care facilities. Even if an individual has already entered a nursing home, there are ways to prevent an estate from being obliterated by the cost. Time, however, is of the essence.
The sooner someone in such a situation contacts an experienced attorney, the more can be done to put plans in place that will help elders from losing their hard-earned estate. Abandoning your living situation in exchange for a long-term care facility is never easy, but the devastation of your estate doesn’t have to be part of the equation. For more information, please visit our estate planning page.
