Elder Law and Long-term Care

As the baby boomer generation continues to age, many individuals and/or their immediate family members are faced with the complex legal issues of aging and/or disability. Many seniors and their family members are concerned about the ability to preserve their assets for long-term care expenses and/or qualifying for long-term care coverage. Whether you are interested in planning for retirement, long-term care costs, nursing home admission or coping with a recent medical emergency, the attorneys at Seegel Lipshutz & Lo are equipped to assist you through these issues with compassion and expertise.

Planning for Long-Term Care

Long-term care planning encompasses a broad range of legal and personal issues. One of the primary focuses of long term care from a legal perspective is planning for the financial security for elderly individuals in the event one or both spouses requires nursing home care currently or in the future. Currently, the annual costs of nursing home care for one individual are approximately $120,000 a year. Our attorneys work with a network of qualified healthcare experts, geriatric care managers, social workers, and other elder care professionals to establish a comprehensive plan to assist you and your family. We are members of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA).

Our elder law and long-term care practice includes:

Long-term care planning
Medicaid applications and appeals
Disability and crisis management
Guardianships and conservatorships
Durable Powers of Attorney and Health Care Proxies
Retirement planning
Asset protection planning
Estate planning and estate tax minimization

Whether you are planning for retirement, long-term care planning, nursing home admission, or coping with a recent death, disability or abuse crisis, we understand your unique needs and have the experience and resources to meet all of your legal requirements.

Qualifying for Medicaid

Medicaid is a federal government program that assists qualified elderly individuals in defraying the costs of nursing home care in the event such care is needed. In Massachusetts, the Medicaid program is known as “MassHealth” and it can pay for most if not all of your nursing home care costs. It is a needs based program, however, so careful and timely planning is needed. We have been assisting our clients in qualifying for MassHealth for over fifteen years. Our attorneys can assist you in properly managing your assets so that you or a loved one will qualify for MassHealth purposes. With appropriate planning, the extraordinarily high costs of nursing home care can become a more manageable situation.

Applying for MassHealth

In the event you are contemplating applying for MassHealth for yourself or a loved one and need some guidance through the complexities of the application and/or the accompanying laws and regulations, our attorneys are here to answer your questions and guide you through the process. Our staff regularly prepares and assists clients in preparing the application for MassHealth along with educating our clients on the most current laws and developments in this area.

In the event you have applied for MassHealth but have been denied benefits, our attorneys can advise you on the appeal process and can represent you at the fair hearing.