Life Happens

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Good morning, Welcome to Life HappensRadio. Are you prepared? This is
our weekly radio program for baby boomersand their families where we address the challenges
we all face as we age.We talk about aging as a lifestyle and
the issues that must be confronted withcareful planning that's a required to avoid crises
in the future. Life Happens willprovide you with tools to educate and prepare
yourself for retirement, protecting your incomeand assets, planning to pay for nursing,

(00:25):
home and home care, special needs, wills and trusts, and resolving
disputes in and out of court.So good morning, everybody. I'm Aaron
Connor, pure O'Connor and Strauss,joined by my most frequent radio co host,
mister Frank Kemmen. Good morning,Frank, Good morning, Aaron.
I feel like I should start outthe show with the disclosure front. I'm

(00:47):
sorry. I just wanted to apologizeup front. That's okay, you know,
I thought getting that out there aheadof time would be the best way
to do it. I mean,I really appreciate the thought. I mean
that's nice. I mean, Idon't know how many shows we have done
together. It's there have been atleast one hundred. I would say it's
many. Yeah, I mean itwould be an interesting show if you were
upset about it and just rant itat me for you know, fifty seven

(01:08):
minutes. But you know, justwait, like that's I feel like we
got to do this for a fewmore years. Then we have to fake
break up. Other billboards are outcorrectly, you see the billboards are out
that like maybe maybe they could come. Yeah, I mean some better ideas
than that than that, I hope. But since we're laid the groundwork now,
we have plenty of time to figurethis out. Yeah, that's true.
That's true. I'll make a noteto discuss off air. So for

(01:33):
those of you who don't know us, we are estate planners, elder law
lawyers. I'm in particular an elderlaw and trust in the States guardianship litigator.
Frank is mister Medicaid. Yeah,that's it's one of the my nicer
names around the office. I feellike most of the times. Yeah yeah,
yeah, yeah, sometimes there's afirst initial, but we won't we

(01:55):
won't get into that. But soand Frank also does long term care,
but he he is known, let'ssay, for his medicaid work, Yeah,
because I mean there are lots ofpeople in the office that do to
some degree long term care planning,whether it's you know, mainly with trusts
and documents and things, but allthe Medicaid work usually comes through my office

(02:15):
to some degree. So I thinkthat's kind of why generally, if it's
Medicaid related, it's going to dealwith men. Percent of the world has
seen a person go into a nursinghome or some kind of long term care
type scenario, and even those thatprobably haven't, I think everyone then it's
pretty convinced that they don't want togo there. Yeah, and I think

(02:36):
that's true. So, so werecently had an interesting case probably is about
as stressful as it can get.Probably is about as stressful as it can
get for a child or children.Yeah, when this involved both mom and

(02:57):
dad being alive, Yes, whichright, not always common that we hear
that, just depending on when they'recoming to us, right, But mom
and dad both needing a nursing homeat the same time, And that's that's
kind of where this is unique.Right. It's not uncommon where we have
one person that needs the nursing home, but I think it is pretty uncommon

(03:20):
that they both need the nursing homeat the same time. Yeah, And
I mean it's not that we've neverseen this before, but I think I
could count on one hand the timeswe've done this before, certainly, if
not one hand too. Yeah,I can think of, well, I
have a current I had a currentcase over one hundred medicaid applications a year.

(03:40):
So yeah, we do, wedo, we have done, and
we've done that number for a whileyears. Yeah, so over we're talking
about thousands of Medicaid applications. Sostatistically this is a very insignificant portion,
but it is a very scary portion. And clean out of a house or
apartment, or they may be facingthe clean out of a house or apartments

(04:05):
that come with this process that aren'tjust tied to just the health or the
well being of mom or dad.Well, right, and then you have
personal property, probably have photographs,you may have hair looms, you know,
I mean all of that lower lowerin the problem scale. Lots of
times we're sending home these people tolook for records. Yeah, as we

(04:25):
frequently talked about when we get tothe medicaid side of all this stuff,
like there's a laundry list of thingsthat you need to get to accompany the
application. So on top of justdealing with all the stuff that Aaron was
just listing off, now you're alsokind of on a scafvenger hunt. Because
again this is kind of a caseby case thing. Sometimes kids get thrown

(04:47):
into the middle of things and momand dad weren't very open about what is
going on, right, so nowthey have to unearth all these new things
without really knowing what they're stepping into. Not always right, which we try
to counsel people not to do itthat way. Well, there's always the
case where we get the records andoh, by the way, mom and

(05:08):
dad gave your sibling eighty thousand dollarsover the last five years. Right,
Oh and you didn't and you didn'tknow it. Oh sorry. Yeah.
I'd love to say that's never happened, but that that has happened. Again,
I wouldn't say it's common, no, but it has happened. But
it has happened. I mean,wild things have happened. But I mean
one of the more typical is thatmoney has gone out and we were unable

(05:29):
to explain it. Yeah, Imean we we we see that for all
kinds of reasons, like we justwe just had a case, we just
got approval on it where mom anddad, uh, it's probably dad in
this instance, took some cash outwasn't a sizeable amount of money. It
was more than two thousand dollars,so it hit the radar of the Medicaid
office and we literally just did nothave a way to explain it because it

(05:53):
was several years ago. They didnot keep receipts or records as to where
the cash went, which the beautyof cash, right, you typically do
that that way you don't have abig trail or you don't have a lot
of hassle with it. But unfortunately, like you know, that led to
a little bit of a Medicaid issuethat then we had to try to explain,
and luckily we had a very responsiveand easy to work with worker on

(06:16):
the other side and we were ableto kind of make it go away.
But it did involve a lot ofback and forth between our office, the
client and the Medicaid office, whereif they had just written a check or
paid on a credit card rather thanjust take cash, that would have been
a little less stuff that had toget dealt with. But you know,
good result ultimately, right, Andyou know, we're talking about larger cash

(06:40):
things, so we're going back intothe mid nineties. But I remember that,
and it had been this way fora while, I don't know how
long. But my grandfather's pension checkand so security check would come in,
right. My grandmother always did themoney, which was I guess a little
more unusual for that era. Butmy grandfather wasn't home because he was on

(07:00):
a boat, right, right,so somebody had to pay the bills while
he was gone. I guess thispaycheck came in the mail out of the
time. I don't know anyway,old old timing stuff, right, sure,
no direct deposits. And he gotfifty dollars every month. That was

(07:21):
his like whatever money, you knowwhat I mean, his allowance, Yeah,
by the New York Post every morning. Get his hair cut, yeap,
once a month. He he didn'thave a lot of hair left on
top, so it was just theside trims, you know, cheap.
Person. That was cheaper. Butwe're not talking about untracked fifty dollars,

(07:43):
no, no, no, no, no no. No. Typically,
transactions over two thousand or what theMedicaid office looks at. It's not always
I routinely used this as the examplewhen people asked me about it. I
once had a lady in a localcounty. Again I'm not going to say
which one, but local county.I think she literally had two transactions throughout

(08:03):
her entire account. I think therewere several accounts. I think there was
like two that we had to explain, and the office came back with a
document request for a fifteen hundred dollarswithdrawal of one of the accounts. And
I remember calling the worker and justnot saying like, Hey, I'm not
going to do this. I justsaid, like, can I just know

(08:24):
what you're like, why you're asking, And they said, it's by far
the biggest withdrawal she's had anywhere.We kind of just want to know what
she did, and I forget therewas a reason, like we were able
to explain it. But they canask about whatever they want. Well,
that's right. The two thousand dollarsisn't like a reg correct not that I
don't think. I don't think I'veever seen one that it's published anywhere that

(08:45):
says that's what they must ask about. That just kind of is like what's
known to be the rule, youknow, what will kick up on their
radar, right, yeah, butthey're allowed to ask about whatever they want,
so like for that fifteen hundred.So coming up, we will go
into the detail tales of this doublenote disaster kind of scenario. I'll let
you know that it is not atwo for one special. There will be

(09:07):
problems with income and assets, andFrank and I will discuss that when we
come back. This is Life HappensRadio. Aaron Connor, Frank Hemming,
Pure O'Connor and Strauss. Welcome backto Life Happens Radio. Aaron Connor,
Frank Hemming from Pierre O'Connor and Strauss. We are elder law estate planning attorneys.
We are talking about things we seebecause real life examples are just that

(09:33):
real, and some people I thinkneed to see the real before they do
anything. It's amazing how many people, Frank, I think, come in
the door. They may be seventyfive eighty and have done like literally nothing.
So I think last time I wason the show with you, it
might not have been the last,it might have been two shows ago.

(09:54):
But I think we talked briefly abouta client or a potential client to come
in where he was in his laternineties, and you know, was thinking
about whether he wanted to do atrust or not, right while he still
has not done that trust, Sohe's still thinking about it, that's right.
And again we've been trying to Idon't want to say, make his
decision for him. That is notthat is not accurate, right, We've

(10:16):
been trying to press upon him like, if you want to do something,
now would be the time. Now, it's the time, right. Still
still isn't quite there yet though,so so you know, and he he
I think he knows what's what thestake or what we're proposing. He seems
to understand that. He just heisn't quite ready to pull the trigger,
that's right. And he certainly couldhave this time previous times, just he's

(10:41):
not there. So the scenario we'retalking about actually involves a lack of planning
this, yeah, the double nursinghome case, you mean, yes,
yes, yeah, right, Sothis is not a scenario where someone did
a trust five years in advance,or a couple did us five years in
advance. If they had this conversationis significantly different, correct, and much

(11:05):
more money would be safe. Yeah, yeah, I mean that's not that
we don't have good news with inthis situation because I think people tend to
think that it's it's very bad newsright from the start and everything's gone,
and that's not how this that's youknow that it's not that bad. I
would say it's relatively good news.Right. Yeah, it's not a complete
disaster, but it's not a completesuccess either, correct, It just it

(11:28):
could have been such a larger successif other things had been done, that's
right, right, But if theplanning had been done, if the trust
had been created, if the stepshad been taken some time ago, we
would now be saying like, well, you're probably gonna lose some income and
maybe a little bit of money,right, but most of it's basically off
the table and they can't do anythingwith it, and it's going to go

(11:50):
to your errors or you know whatevertheir plan turned out to be, right,
And we are not diametrically opposed topaying the nursing home, right,
No, of course not. Imean many people come to see us and
they're at an asset level where there'snot really much we can do. Yeah,
which I mean, good for you, But I say many, but
predominantly that's not who we say right, yeah, or at least even the

(12:13):
people that maybe could do it fora period of time, they realize that
like well if if you gamble andyou gamble the wrong way, like yeah,
could we pay for a period oftime, yeah, but then it's
really going to start impacting the endresult. Right. And that's I think
also where people are very focused correct, right. It's not they don't want
to just make sure that like they'recared for. They also want to leave

(12:35):
something. So it's like even ifthey did have some money to privately pay
for their care, right, theidea is to save as much as they
can to pass it along. Andwe often leave a little bit of money
to entice too, yes, yeah, to get into the place of choice

(12:56):
right, right, Because I don'tthink that's a secret either. If you
are at the medicaid level, you'regoing to get into a nursing home,
but you may not get into thenursing home do you want to be in,
or at least not right away?Right. And this can become an
issue geographically for people because their lovedone can be placed. They could live

(13:20):
in Albany and their loved one couldbe placed in Catskill or Hudson or you
know, yeah, yeah, mostof the time, I would say the
vast majority of placements occur after ahospitalization, correct, I agree, where
then it's much more in the handsof the hospital and the discharged team at
the hospital getting that person then sentto rehab typically somewhere, and then once

(13:45):
that person gets to rehab, thenit's you know, then the rehab will
occur, and then depending how allthat goes, then the discussions will start
happening as to what next steps isfollowing rehab, and that's whether that means
they're going to return to the communityor that they're going to main having to
remain in a facility. And thenthe question is, well, if facility
is needed, are they going tostay at that facility, Like does that

(14:07):
rehab have a bed for them,because because sometimes they do, you know,
sometimes they do. I would saythese days it's it's probably no more
likely or not than any other time, just generally, but sometimes the family
doesn't like that place, or maybethey really do, but it's not geographically
convenient. Right, We've had thathappen. So there are a lot of

(14:28):
factors that go into that calculus ofwhat makes sense. But sometimes it's a
move has to happen. But theplace that you want your loved one to
go either doesn't have a bed orthey're not willing to offer one, right
for whatever reason. Correct, Andthen you've got to make other arrangements.
And sometimes that means people are goingto stay where you don't want them to
be, right or even if it'snot forever. In a case like this

(14:54):
double no case though we don't reallyface those problems as much. No,
we're looking yet paying a fair amountof money for both spouse, right for
each spouse to go to a nursinghome. Yeah, So as as we
frequently talk about when we're talking aboutthis aspect of what we do, nursing
homes are they're not cheap, right, right, If you're paying out of

(15:16):
pocket, they're not cheap, andthey're mostly for profit entities, or if
they're not, they're at least tryingto break even entities, right. Yeah,
they're not trying to be underwater forsure. So it's the standard facility
in this area is going to bebetween fifteen to seventeen thousand a month.
So if you show up to anyarea nursing home and say, hey,

(15:37):
I not only have one, butI have two private pay people for you
know, call it thirty two thousanddollars a month, right, and we've
got money to pay you for Xnumber of months. That's going to be
pretty attractive to that nursing home,right, because a lot of people are
not going to be able to showup and say that that they have that
ability to pay for very long.Well, I think for people who don't

(16:02):
know, we need to mention thatthe Medicaid rate is different than the private
pay rate. Yeah, they donot publicize what Medicaid pays. It's a
very it's a very weird system ingeneral. This is certainly one of I
think the more stranger aspects of it. Where each facility contracts with each county
so independently, right, So youcould have one facility getting one rate from

(16:25):
one county and a different rate froma different county even though it's the same
facility. That's right. You couldhave one county pay different rates to different
facilities in the same county, right. So there's there's no real rhyme or
reasons. The best I think wenormally can say just on what we do
kind of know, is the Medicaidrate is going to be pretty substantially lower
than the private pay rate. Yeah, and I think that's one of the

(16:48):
reasons that a lot of counties,you know, a reason anyway, had
their own nursing home. Yeah.Right, But now we don't see that
very much. Yeah, I meanwe here in the Capitol district, you
know, we do know which onesthe county facilities are things like that.
But Saratoga got rid of its countyfacility, right, right, they sold
it to a private entity. Right, But correct me if I'm wrong.

(17:10):
Schenectady, Wrenstler, and Almney stillall had their own county facility. Yes,
that's correct, but they are nevercalled the county facility, no,
or the Omne County Nursing Home orwhatever. No, not anyway, not
anymore. We give them a fancyplay name place. So yeah, but

(17:30):
I think that certainly could be someof the logistics behind some of those things,
because then they kind of directly cancontrol what their payments are do it
much better degree because they're not negotiatingwith an outside entity. But at the
end of the day, it's likea lot of other things, this is
about dollars, and the dollars comefrom private pay people, right, And

(17:52):
because the private pay rates are ashigh as they are. The facility is
the only way to even hit I'mnot even to say make a profit,
but even should try to break even. Right, They have to kind of
make up for all the Medicaid patientsbecause we know that their rates aren't very
good. So it's just going toshoot that private pay rate up. And
that's probably just a big reason ofwhy we're seeing the rates do what they've

(18:15):
been doing, and that's just steadilygoing up and up and up. Yeah,
I mean, obviously the labor marketis difficult. Just speaking as a
person who is looking to employ morepeople than we currently employ, it is
not easy to find people, yes, and that goes really across the board,
I think in all industries right now. Yeah, I mean I have

(18:37):
not been on the lookout as muchas I was a few months ago,
but it certainly for quite a whileat this point, it seems like everybody
had hiring signs out, ads out, you know, people were but then
again, it didn't seem like alot of people were not working, right.
It seemed like there were a lotof open positions, but not a
lot of available workers. Yep.And if you're if you're in a job

(19:00):
and you don't necessarily like what you'redoing. There's plenty of opportunities to move
on, but then you have toincentivize those people because they probably have several
options of what else where else theycould go. Yeah, yeah, it's
it's been an employee market for afair amount of time now, Yeah,
I mean it's it's it's interesting forme to think about in that term or

(19:21):
in terms of that because when Iwas looking for a job prior to when
I got hired with the firm,the legal market was in such a bad
place that there were very few jobs. It was very hard to find a
job. Now that's because the worldwas actually right about something. There were
too many lawyers, yeah right,and now things are just they've flipped on

(19:41):
their heads a bit. So it'sjust been very interesting to see there's still
may be too many lawyers, butthere's not enough of doing what we do.
Yes, yeah, different problem.Correct. So you know, we
we talk about these medicaid issues ona regular basis, still haven't really gotten
that deep into this scenario because Idon't know, we're lawyers and we like

(20:03):
to hear ourselves talk. But that'shey kind kind of how it goes.
Part of the job. Yeah,but we do do a Medicaid Monday once
a month. Yeah, Frank ison every Medicaid Monday. I think I
think I've missed one. Okay,yeah, out of all the ones we've
done, I think I've missed likeone. So he's not cal Ripken Jr.
But I was. I messed itup. Maybe maybe you could be

(20:29):
the tin horse or something like that, not the iron horse for lou Garrick.
You know, hey, just beatEli Manning. I'll be like the
one with the current longest streak butdoesn't beat the all time record. I
just feel like files would end upgetting intercepted in the office. But that's
just some pds I know. Iknow. Anyway, So if you want

(20:52):
to see UH or learn more aboutmedicaid, you can always go to our
website at info at Purola dot comand sign up for Medica Mondays, or
you can even call us at fivepoint eight four. That's also if you
want to talk to us about yourown planet. We're coming up on the
news. So when Frank and Icome back, I promise we will actually
get to what we started to talkabout earlier. Life Happens Radio Aaron Connor,

(21:15):
Frank Emming, Pierre O'Connor, andStrouss Welcome back to Life Happens Radio.
Aaron Connor, Frank Hemming, PureO'Connor, and Strauss state planning attorneys,
Medicaid, state litigation guardianships, stateadministration. I mean, I keep

(21:36):
saying during our breaks, we coulddo like a draft breakdown if people want
just I think that's not why peopleare here now. I mean, you
know, Frank and I are bothGiants fans. I think we're I think
we're satisfied. Yeah, I'm notdisappointed. As we were talking, I
was a little disappointed, just becauseI wanted to see crazy things happen the

(21:56):
night of the draft, and thatjust isn't really what happened, other than
I don't really know what the Falconswere doing. Well right now that was
crazy. Was Guy's going to betwenty four before the season starts and then
they're gonna sit him right Yeah,I mean by the time he plays,
he might need a Medicaid app.We can help Michael Pannis. You want
to you want to come to NewYork, I could help you anyway.

(22:18):
Anyway. We digress, We digress. So we're talking about this kind of
unfortunate scenario where mom and dad bothneed a nursing home at the same time.
This is a situation where there isnot a Medicaid asset protection trust in
place. Never never attempted right.It wasn't that people didn't make it through

(22:41):
five years. They just never didany planning. I think the kids,
I think they said it was somethingyou know, they talked about it a
long time ago. Mom and Dadshould have gone and seen somebody never got
to it. Long story short,didn't get to it right. So might
be a good thing to get toright, like I said it would.

(23:02):
It would be it would make thispart easier for sure, and that the
news would be better. So Ialways say one of the reasons I became
a lawyer is because I don't likemath. Okay, is that a fair
statement? That's very very fair.We want to go way back in the

(23:22):
dark ages. When I took theSAT my math score was higher than my
English score, which is interesting knowingyou right, But I hated that math.
I'm I guess I'm old enough thatreally did not It wasn't a thing

(23:42):
that asked some totes or you know, logarithms were going to like dominate the
world. Right, That wasn't reallywhat I was thinking, And honestly,
even if I had been thinking it, I probably would have said, nah,
yeah, not for me. Sothat the world has changed, right,

(24:07):
But what hasn't changed is when youdon't do the planning, they're going
to get your money. Yeah,And in this case there's a fair amount
of math, there's yeah, whichI get to do. Right. So
essentially these people are treated like twoseparate entities. Yeah. So when we

(24:30):
when we do medicaid work, typicallywe're talking about you know, a household,
if you will, And a lotof times there's a if it's two
people, there's a there's a medicaidspouse, and there's a well spouse or
a community spouse. Well, inthis instance, we don't have a medicaid
spouse and an ill or in awell spouse. We have a medicaid spouse
and a medicaid spouse, right,so don't have apouse, right. So,

(24:52):
so in all so, they're treatedas their own kind of violence.
If you will, Dad is dad, Mom is mom. That's just how
it is, right. So,yeah, so it's kind of a weird
starting place just when you're dealing withtwo individuals, because that's normally not how
we do this, and their calculationis not going to be the same,
right, which is why the mathgets fun, right, We'll say,
and I mean predominantly one of thosereasons is that their incomes are not exactly

(25:18):
what it is because certain there arepieces to their calculation that will be the
same. So essentially what we dois we total up all their stuff.
Now, in this instance, thankfully, they were renters, I think for
the vast majority of their adult lives, so we didn't have to deal with
the we have to clean out thehouse, We got to sell the house,
we got to deal with all thatstuff. Right. Well, let's

(25:40):
just talk about that for a hotsecond. Okay, So if in this
scenario real property had been owned,it would be messier, right, because
it's just another piece to throw intothe equation to see is there enough value
there there? We don't have todeal with the house now. Can we
offset it with liquid assets or isit something that we have to deal with

(26:00):
the house now to deal with orto kind of complete what we want to
do here, right, which isoften an issue because sometimes a house can
be liquidated quickly. Yeah, buta lot of times even even I would
say, just in general, evenwhen things are going quickly, it's still
a few months absolutely, which isburning money. Yeah, between clean out

(26:21):
listing, you know, finding areal estate agent, going through the process,
then the finding the buyer. Thebuyer might have to get their financing
in order, you know, theymight have to sell their house. You
know, there's just there's just stuffright right, It's very unusual. It's
it's not usual where it's like,oh, well we listed the house and
we sold it in a month,and now we just have our cash and

(26:42):
we're good. Let's just do whatwe were going to do. I mean,
it's it has happened, it's justnot the common way that it does.
And that's right. So so yeah, so if if there had been
real estate here, that would justbe another factor here. Just in the
actual case that we're talking about,we don't have real property, which will
make this part slightly easier, whichis good. Right, So we're going

(27:06):
to pool all their money together.So let's just say I'm just making up
a number. So let's say theyeach had or so combined, Let's say
they had about six hundred thousand dollars, So they each had six hundred.
Then we're gonna split that down themiddle, and we're essentially going to say,
all right, well half is momsand half his dad. So three
hundreds moms, three hundreds dads.Right, then we're going to a factor
in their incomes because their incomes aregoing to be different. Right, they

(27:26):
both get Social Security, if theyget you know, if one gets a
pension, one doesn't. If onegets a pension, or they both get
pensions, they're going to be differentamounts, right. You know, if
they have iras, their RMD payments, they're going to be slightly different because
again, their balances of their accountsare different, their ages are different.
So essentially we have to kind ofdo a promisory note calculation for each of

(27:49):
them, but with half the money. So we're gonna take dad's income,
dad's assets, do our math andfigure out how we're going to save roughly
half of his half of the money. And they're going to do the same
thing for mom to figure out howwe're going to save roughly half of her
money. In this case, they'rein the same nursing home. Yes,

(28:11):
in this case they are. Butwe have we have in the past had
a case where they were not,that's right, which is also another variable.
Right, So the cost of carein this instance, yes, will
be the same for both of thembecause their daily rates will be the same.
But let's say, as we haven'thad in that past, and one
of the past cases I mentioned before, we would have one spouse in one
nursing home and other spouse in adifferent one. So then they're called their

(28:33):
rates of care are different because thefacilities rates are going to be different,
that's right. And I think inthat case that was by request that they
were separate. N Yes, yeah, the uh we had talked about having
them together and for other reasons thatwas not going to work, so that
was that was shot down. Yeah, So so one was in one and
the other was not far away,but they were in another one. But

(28:53):
in this case they are together.So that does make that part again a
little easier. But the calculate orthe you know, the scheme of things
would be the same. It's justwe have kind of one variable to fill
in rather than two different ones,right, And dependent on how disparate the
incomes are, we may have aone note that lasts longer. I mean,

(29:14):
we will have one that lasts longerthan the other, no matter what.
That's a that's a tautology based onthe fact that they don't have identical
incomes, right, right, ifthey were disparate an income, which I
you could have a note that lastsmaybe two or three more months, depending
on the income. But yeah,yeah, I mean it's it's not uncommon,
especially with people of the generation typicallywhere we're dealing with people where husband

(29:41):
was the made breadwinner, husband hasthe higher social security, husband has the
pension, you know, husband hasthe IRA. And if that's the case,
like husband's income is going to bepretty pretty decent generally speaking. Wife
you know again, wife may have, how may have all those things.
It's also entirely possible wife may havebeen you know, main you're working at
home or just doing side jobs,you know, for most of her life

(30:03):
where she gets security nothing else.Right. So if you have a really
you know, if you have thekind of the bread winning spouse versus the
stay at home spouse, right,their incomes are going to be pretty substantially
different, right, And depending onthe amount of money that we're splitting and
doing all this stuff with, Yeah, you could have a note that's going
to be a few months shorter orlonger for either one of them, just
depending how all the math shakes out. So yeah, it's a lot of

(30:26):
math. Sorry, Yeah, sonot uncomplicated either. No, it's just
a lot of moving pieces because andthen we have to work with the family
to make sure that they're managing twomonthly loan payments rather than just one,
because essentially they're doing a loan paymentfor mom and a loan payment for dad's
right. So again, the mechanicsare roughly the same, it's just everything

(30:47):
is doubled, h And it's it'sall again, it's all doable. I
mean, I suppose in some regardthey're each saving half of their half,
right approximately, So it's right approximately, yeah, aproximately. It's almost like
there was only one of them.Yeah, from a math standpoint at the

(31:11):
at the end of the day.Yeah, like if if if there had
been just one spouse that saved orthat came in with six hundred thousand,
we'd be saying we can save approximatelyhalf of this, which would be three
Well, now we're taking six hundredtotal, splitting it having three hundred three
hundred, then saving one fifty fromeach, which is approximately three hundred saved.
Yeah, the hopefully the savings willbe in the ballpark as as I

(31:37):
don't want to get into on theradio because it's it's already confusing enough as
it is. If you have ahigher income person, typically we can save
more money because the loan can besmaller. Right, So if you have
a high like if it had justbeen the higher earning spouse by themselves,
would probably save more money than ifwe're in a scenario where we have a
higher earning spouse and a less earningspouse, we're on saving half of each,

(32:00):
right, right, just because ofhow the math works. But it's
again, I think the take homepoint besides this, this is incredibly intricate
for people like me, is ifthey had done the plan upfront, we
would be saying, hey, wewere saving six hundred thousand dollars. You
both can go to the nursing home. You lose your incomes, right,

(32:20):
not great, still emotionally draining,right, Still some things to do.
We're not losing very much money inthe scheme of things, right, And
I think we delicately should discuss toowhat happens when someone passes away during the
term of a note. Okay,yeah, sure, because we are talking
unfortunately about people who are not doingwell physically. You're in a nursing home.
I mean ered, I mean,I can't, I don't mean this

(32:45):
in a bad way. I can'ttell you how many times I've been in
consults where you've mentioned your family memberand how long she was in a facility,
right, Right, So it doesn'talways mean that anything is imminently going
to happen if you wind up goingto a nursing home. Just the odds
typically aren't in your favor for youknow, in many respects, if you
are sick and needy enough of needinga dursing home, that's all. Yeah,

(33:07):
And that My great great aunt wasn'tin the Tarisian house for fifteen or
so years. But I think someof that time it was just like what
they did with old folks, right, It was a little different at the
time they went and just played cards. She wasn't like losing her mind.
In fact, she was still asmean as she ever was, right and

(33:31):
confirmed by multiple family You know,anybody related to me on my dad's side,
you can ask him about aunt.Be Probably everybody will do an impression
of her voice, which I willnot do on the radio. But now
we don't see that that person mightbe an assisted living maybe now for independent

(33:53):
living, but certainly for many ofthose years she was essentially received being nursing
home level care. Yeah, wejust she had to come visit on holidays,
but other than that. But ifso, if someone passes away during

(34:13):
the term of the note, thenote essentially ends, right, what happens,
So it is a The note itselfsays that it does not terminate upon
death, like it has to saythat, right, So that then it
becomes an asset that has to bedealt with by through the estate typically.
So then it's just again we doa lot to try to keep people out

(34:36):
of the out of the estate world, right out of probate, but under
the terms of the note, that'skind of what has to happen. So
it's kind of just another wrinkle oflike can it be dealt with? Yes?
Is it the worst case scenario?Typically not? Is it just another
thing you have to deal with?Yes. I mean maybe at some point

(35:00):
you might even want to stop havinglawyers involved in your life, right.
I Mean, I'm not advocating thatit's not right, but I would think
generally speaking, more often than not, people would say, hey, you
know what, enough of the lawyer. Well, that's honestly, I think
that's always interesting because that's we activelycounsel people to not need us, right,

(35:23):
if you do it the right way, right, you'll need us a
little bit. Yeah, but youwon't need us a lot. You won't
have to go to court, youwon't have to deal with people coming in
from out of the blue causing problemsright typically right, or if they do,
it's much harder for them to actuallymake any headway or cause major issues.

(35:44):
Correct. Right, you protect yourassets and you don't have to deal
with us longer than you have to, like, win, win win,
right win, help me help you? Right in a famous sports movie.
All right, all right, Ithink that's a good time to take our
last break. This is Life HappensRadio. Aaron Connor. He is still

(36:07):
frank hemming. I'm pretty sure,I hope, so all right, if
not, you can help me withthe guardianship. We are from pierro' connor
and Strouss and we'll be back rightafter this. Welcome back to the last
segment of Life Happens Radio for thisweek. Thank you for listening. Aaron
Connor from Pier O'Connor and Strauss,joined by our senior associate, mister Frank

(36:30):
Hemming. Still here and thanks forlistening. We have been talking about well,
Frank's here, we've been talking aboutmedicaid, talking about maybe some things
not to do. Probably not asurprise to people who listen to the show
frequently. It's unfortunate, but whatI term negative reinforcement seems to work better

(36:53):
than positive reinforcement in this arena especially. We like possit of reinforcement better obviously,
but if at all possible, right, but uh, I think the
stories of mistakes that other people havemade can really help you, the listener

(37:15):
out there, make the right decisionand do something right. Doing something usually
is better than doing nothing right.So you know, if you're interested in
that, feel free certainly to reachout on our website info at Peri Law
dot com or give us a callat five. Frank would be happy to

(37:37):
talk to you. I would,you know, I I would, as
would you ask I see why woulddo it? There? I would?
But you know that's that's just howit goes. Yeah, no, I
see what you're doing. So whenwe do this note Frank that we've been

(37:59):
talking about and if you've missed someof the show, we've talked about a
scenario where both parents need a nursinghome at the same time. It's fairly
unusual, but it does happen,and I think it highlights why you want
to do more planning because this certainlyrequires a lot more legal work than the
typical scenario. Yes, okay,yep, And when we do these notes,

(38:23):
frank, we're still filing a Medicaidapplication. You have to, right,
There's the whole reason to do allthis is to get the penalty period
running because when we do this giftednote where we do this plan where we
save roughly half the funds, Essentially, what we're doing at the end of

(38:43):
the day is we're creating a periodof ineligibility on purpose by having a penalty
assessed by Medicaid, where then you'reusing funds from the promisory note to pay
for the nursing home. Right,A lot of it's counterintuitive, but none
of that actually happened until Medicaid approvesall of this. Right, So let's

(39:04):
say Zach Wilson's career comes through thedoor, okay, and we need to
do a Medicaid application. Is notlooking good? All right, but that'd
be long enough to do a dope. I sue what you're doing, and
you're going to audit five years ofrecords? Yes, right, yes,

(39:25):
And in this case you probably finda lot of interceptions and not a lot
of yards. But you know,in a typical scenario, you'd be looking
for transactions. Yeah, yeah,we we. It's one of the reasons
why I think people like when peoplelike us help because other than get us
the records, we do a lotof this kind of work rather than you

(39:49):
guys. And why do we dothat? So we do the accounting mainly
because we have some of those orat least there's the potential for those unforeseen
issues like you mentioned Reddit star theshow, like oh we didn't know that,
Like brother got eighty thousand dollars,right, but but he did or
or someone did, or there's lotsof cash missing or college tuition gifts right

(40:13):
a lot right? Or grandchildren.You know, someone got married, you
bought somebody a car. Yeah,all kinds of stuff where stuff that sounds
nice, but is it a problemin this scenario? You know where we
say hey, right at the start, hey, any large gifts or transfers
in the last five years, peopletend to think no. And again,
it's not to say that people aren'tbeing truthful, right, It's that they
don't always remember, right, Theydon't always remember what they've done, or

(40:37):
they don't always think of what they'vedone as being a problem. Well,
five years is a long time,right of course, so you know,
So so we like to do theaudit to make sure that we actually have
accurate information because like, let's say, you know, and again, I'm
gonna try to make this simple.So let's let's let's kind of just take
it a little simpler. So let'ssay we have just one person, right,

(41:00):
we have our three hundred thousand,so we're going to split it down
the middle save roughly one fifty.So let's say during that audit, we
found that somebody got that eighty thousanddollars gift that we didn't, that no
one knew anything about other than momor dad, right, And it came
to light during the accounting that we'vewe were missing eighty thousand dollars and we
didn't have any and there's no wayto explain it away. Well, if

(41:22):
son, daughter, whomever got that, got the money, if they can
give it back right, then wecan pretend like it kind of didn't happen,
right, But nine times out often that's not. Yeah, I
mean, I have a quick storyif we can get to it about something
like that. But so let's pretendlike that's just gone right, that got
already got paid to the college.It already went to the new car,

(41:43):
you know, whatever it is.So now instead of saving the one hundred
and fifty thousand, like we thought, well, now we're saving seventy thousand
because we would have saved one hundredand fifty, but we already lost eighty
of it already, right, It'sessentially already been gifted. Yeah, So
now we have to kind of bakethat into the calculus here to make sure
that at the end we're still gettingmedicaid when we want. But the only

(42:05):
way to kind of set all ofthese things in motion is to make sure
we have all the information. Andthe only way to do that is that
we have to audit the records andsee what's been going on for five years.
Right, So, Frank, what'sthe consequence of not doing all of
that correctly? So let's say wedidn't do that. Let's just say we
we did the calculation. We dideverything, you know, assuming that everything

(42:29):
was fine. So then we haveour we give away our one hundred and
fifty, we save our one hundredand fifty. Well, now at the
end we're going to say, hey, you know, medicaid, here you
go pick up for this person.After one hundred and fifty for the notes
been spent down, they're going tocome back and say, oh, by
the way, we're not getting medicaidwhen the one hundred and fifty is gone,

(42:49):
right, you're gonna get medicaid anothersixi ish months because there's another eighty
thousand missing from the accounting. Now, so in this instant then that the
net result would still be roughly thesame. But now the but now the
family's expectation is entirely different because theywere told, based on the math that

(43:10):
we had done, that we're goingto save you one hundred and fifty thousand,
when in actuality, we're going tosave closer to that seventy because we
found the missing or we didn't findthe missing eighty thousand right up front,
right, and we're always going toask about gifts. Yeah, we're not
always going to get the right answerright from the client. Because the answer
is going to be in the documents. Yeah, because I mean, let's
say let's say it wasn't eighty thousandwe found. Let's say it was two

(43:32):
hundred thousand that we didn't find.Right, Well, then if we if
we were planning on saving one hundredand fifty, but two hundred was actually
in addition to what we knew,gone, well, now you're underwater,
right, and then we would havehad to do this entirely different and they
get nothing, very close to nothing. That's not to say that you wouldn't

(43:53):
want to do a note in ascenario where a lot of money had been
given away. No, If anything, you kind of need the note to
work because you need to clear thepenalty, right, So let's just put
some meat on that. Yeah.So let's say we have a scenario where
dad has passed away. Mom's asurvivor, she needs a nursing home,

(44:15):
but she's given away two hundred offour hundred thousand dollars already, right,
yeah, gone, Yeah, likewe have, we had a case not
too long ago that was kind ofsimilar to this. Yeah, so in
that instance, you kind of needto do the note piece of this where
we're saying we're not saving you anythingadditional because you already kind of got We
already kind of did what we wouldhave been doing for you now, right,

(44:37):
you just did it. Then,Well, because what's what happens?
So let's just say that they dowhat probably most people would do in that
scenario and think they need de privatepay till they get to the medicaid level.
Yeah, right now, now wegot a big problem. These gifts
have been made within still within thatfive year look back, yep. So
there's there's no money to fix itright now. Now they're going to get

(44:59):
hit with this penalty for the twohundred thousand or whatever the number is,
right, and now there's not goingto be any money to private pay for
this penalty because all that's gone.And now you're going to be in a
scenario where you're not going to beattracted to a nursing home. You're going
to have a long penalty period,right, and you're going to have to
start thinking of some creative ways toget that penalty period undone by probably going

(45:22):
to a fair hearing and making Idon't know, I can at least think
of a few arguments you could makewhether you're not a great argument. Okay,
whether you're successful it is a completelydifferent, different thing. Likelihood of
success on those things probably fairly low. And so it's critical in those scenarios
to come see us before you gettoo deep, because we can't when there's

(45:42):
no money left, we can't fixit. Nope, can't get money back.
If we could create money from theair, we would not be doing
what we're doing right now. Yeah, and just to finish my thought from
before, I have a current case. Mom gave nine thousand dollars gifts to
her four kids. I'm dealing withone. I said, hey, can
the money come back? Said,oh sure. He gave his nine thousand
dollars back, called his three siblings, said, hey, you got to

(46:04):
give the money back. Guess howmuch they had left? Zero? Yeah,
they already spent it. Yeah,so now mom's out twenty seven grand.
Yeah. Now we can deal withit because it's not a huge amount
of money. But he told hewas not happy with his siblings. Told
him, can't touch it, can'tdo anything with it. It's got to
be there for Mom said, youknow, actually called it in, said
you got to give it back?Three didn't have it. Yeah, Well,
I mean that's why we don't dothings that way right. People are

(46:28):
like, why can't I just outrightgive this money to my kids? Well,
so much bad can happen. Theycould pass away, they could get
divorced. That's why we use thetrust. People like to spend money if
you give it to him, That'strue. People like to spend other people
more than anything else. That's thebest mouney to spend. Well, I
spend your money when you got money. As a business owner, I see
people who like to spend spend themoney, which I uh, slow their

(46:52):
role on a little bit. Yeahwhatever, Yeah, a different day.
I say. I joke with mydaughter all the time that she's really it's
spending my money. Kids will dothat for you. Yeah, that's I
mean, she's real good at it. Yeah. So we're just about coming
up to the end here. Somoral of today's story. Do some planning,

(47:13):
do it early, do it well. Protect your money that you worked
your whole life for. It's criticallyimportant. Yeah. Plan when you're wealth
and if you're well planned, thingswill go well when you need when you
need help, and we would loveto help you do that. You can
give us a call at five oneeight four five nine twenty one hundred,

(47:36):
or send us an email at infoat perro law dot com. I know
I will be back next week forthe third week in a row, so
there sure advance advanced morning. Iwill not be here. That's right,
and this is life Happens Radio.Have a great weekend, everybody,