Skilled Nursing Facilities
Many clients walk into their initial consultation with an estate planning lawyer equipped with the name of an enemy and the lengths to which they are willing to go to keep this enemy at bay. For some clients, the enemy is the IRS, and the client has grandiose plans of transferring every item of property to a trust or an LLC so that, when the client dies, his estate will appear to be nonexistent. Some clients make it their goal to avoid nursing homes at all costs, and they come to the meeting with drawings of how to remodel their houses to cope with mobility limitations and to give their daughter-in-law an acceptable level of privacy when she and her husband inevitably move in. Other clients identify boredom as their enemy, and they open their laptop computers to reveal folders full of cruise itineraries and real estate listings for tiny houses in which to crash for brief periods between excursions. You will eventually have to face the fact that, no matter your health, your family situation, or your values, at some point you will probably need some kind of medical care that lasts for more than a few days. Nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and skilled nursing facilities sound a lot less scary when you find out about what they do long before a doctor recommends that you go to one. To find out more about skilled nursing facilities and other places that are not as frightening as they sound, contact an Orlando estate planning lawyer.
How Is a Skilled Nursing Facility Different From Other Medical and Caregiving Facilities?
In a skilled nursing facility, the focus is on rehabilitation. Patients enter a skilled nursing facility after being discharged from the hospital if they still require more support and rehabilitation before they are ready to go home. At a skilled nursing facility, nurses help patients with tasks of daily living, such as bathing and walking, while physical therapists and occupational therapists help them regain function that they lost because of an injury, illness, or medical procedure. Patients leave the skilled nursing facility when they have achieved maximum medical improvement. If they are healthy enough, this means that they go home, but if they will require long-term assistance with activities of daily living, then they enter a nursing home.
How Do You Pay for Skilled Nursing Care?
If you are at least 65 years old, Medicare will pay for up to 100 days of treatment in a skilled nursing facility after a qualifying hospital stay. If you are younger, you can pay for it through Medicaid, if you qualify, or private or marketplace health insurance, if you have it. Long-term care insurance also covers skilled nursing facility stays.
Contact Gierach and Gierach About Planning for Skilled Nursing Care
An estate planning lawyer can help you build your estate plan to account for the possibility of skilled nursing facility stays. Contact Gierach and Gierach, P.A. in Orlando, Florida to discuss your case.
Sources:
uhc.com/news-articles/medicare-articles/whats-the-difference-between-a-skilled-nursing-facility-and-a-nursing-home
aarp.org/caregiving/health/info-2021/when-to-apply-for-medicaid.html?intcmp=AE-CAR-BB
