2017 Ohio Medicaid Financial Standards for Long Term Care – Update

Okay!  I’ve got to stop trying to post an update of this information right after the first of the year.  Too many of these financial eligibility limits trickle out during January.

So, here’s an update of my early January 2017 post.

The Medicaid program helps pay for long term care (nursing home, assisted living, or in-home care) for many seniors.  The Medicaid rules allow the patient and the patient’s spouse to keep certain amounts of their savings and certain amounts from their monthly income.  As of January 2017, Ohio’s Medicaid program allows the following amounts:
Savings patient can keep: $2,000
Savings spouse at home can keep: $24,180 – $120,900
Monthly income patient can keep: $50
Monthly income allowance for spouse: $2,003 – $3,023
Monthly housing allowance for spouse at home: $601
Monthly utility allowance for spouse at home: $513
What Medicaid pays nursing homes each month: $6,570
Limit on equity in home:  $560,000
Monthly gross income above $2,205 triggers the need for a Qualified Income Trust (aka Miller Trust)

Note:  Because this information is an update of the Medicaid “financial standards,” it also appears on my website’s Medicaid page.

P.S.  I’ll try to remember to publish the 2018 values in February next year rather than rushing to publish in early January and then having to correct myself.

2017 Ohio Medicaid Financial Standards for Long Term Care

Note:  There was no blog post last week (December 30.)  Happy 2017!

The Medicaid program helps pay for long term care (nursing home, assisted living, or in-home care) for many seniors.  The Medicaid rules allow the patient and the patient’s spouse to keep certain amounts of their savings and certain amounts from their monthly income.  As of January 2017, Ohio’s Medicaid program allows the following amounts:
Savings patient can keep: $2,000
Savings spouse at home can keep: $23,844 – $119,220
Monthly income patient can keep: $50
Monthly income allowance for spouse: $2,003 – $2,981
Monthly housing allowance for spouse at home: $601
Monthly utility allowance for spouse at home: $513
What Medicaid pays nursing homes each month: $6,570
Limit on equity in home:  $552,000
Monthly gross income above $2,205 triggers the need for a Qualified Income Trust (aka Miller Trust)

Note:  Because this information is an update of the Medicaid “financial standards,” it also appears on my website’s Medicaid page.

2016 Ohio Medicaid financial standards for long term care

Note:  There were no blog posts the last two weeks (Christmas and New Year’s Day.)  Happy 2016!

The Medicaid program helps pay for long term care (nursing home, assisted living, or in-home care) for many seniors.  The Medicaid rules allow the patient and the patient’s spouse to keep certain amounts of their savings and certain amounts from their monthly income.  As of January 2015, Ohio’s Medicaid program allows the following amounts:
Savings patient can keep: $1,500
Savings spouse at home can keep: $23,844 – $119,220
Monthly income patient can keep: $50
Monthly income allowance for spouse: $1,992 – $2,981
Monthly housing allowance for spouse at home: $598
Monthly utility allowance for spouse at home: $510
What Medicaid pays nursing homes each month: $6,327
Limit on equity in home:  $552,000

Note:  Because this information is an update of the Medicaid “financial standards,” it also appears on my website’s Medicaid page.

2015 Ohio Medicaid financial standards for long term care

The Medicaid program helps pay for long term care (nursing home, assisted living, or in-home care) for many seniors.  The Medicaid rules allow the patient and the patient’s spouse to keep certain amounts of their savings and certain amounts from their monthly income.  As of January 2015, Ohio’s Medicaid program allows the following amounts:
Savings patient can keep: $1,500
Savings spouse at home can keep: $23,844 – $119,220
Monthly income patient can keep: $50
Monthly income allowance for spouse: $1,967 – $2,981
Monthly housing allowance for spouse at home: $590
Monthly utility allowance for spouse at home: $498
What Medicaid pays nursing homes each month: $6,327
Limit on equity in home:  $552,000

Note:  Because this information is an update of the Medicaid “financial standards,” it also appears on my website’s Medicaid page.

For more information visit www.ProtectingSeniors.com.

Jim Koewler’s mission is Protecting Seniors and People with Special Needs

For help with long term care costs, call Jim, or contact him through this website.

© 2015 The Koewler Law Firm.  All rights reserved.

Get Inflation Protection in your Long Term Care Insurance Policy

Today’s blog post continues the series about buying long term care insurance as a strategy for planning ahead for long term care.  My post of May 22, 2014 discussed whether to buy long term care insurance at all.  My post of May 29, 2014 suggested looking for a stable, proven insurer.  My post of June 5, 2014 described how to identify a proven, stable Long Term Care insurance company.  The introductory post in the series on planning ahead for long term care costs appeared on May 15, 2014.

As my next suggestion on long term care insurance, I urge you to include inflation protection in your long term care insurance policy.

The insurance company will look at today’s costs of long term care in determining the policy’s payout.  You don’t expect to make a claim against the policy until many years from now though.  By that time, however, prices for long term care, like prices for everything else, will almost surely increase significantly.  (Prices for long term care and for health care have often gone up more quickly than overall consumer prices.)  If you fail to get inflation protection, the payout could be very little compared to your long term care costs.

Get compound inflation protection rather than simple inflation protection (like compound interest rather than simple interest.)  Simple inflation protection calculates the price increase from the base amount, the payout level in the year you bought the policy. (For example, if you purchase a policy that will pay out $200 per day with simple 5% inflation protection, it will have a $210 payout in year two, a $220 payout in year three, a $230 payout in year four, etc.)  Compound inflation protection builds on each year’s growth, like getting interest on last year’s interest.  (For example, that same $200 per day base would have a $210 payout in year two, a $220.05 payout in year three, a $231.53 payout in year four, etc.)  That may not seem like a big difference, but please remember that you buy long term care insurance hoping not to need it for a long time, and the difference between the two policies will only get bigger over time.  That $200 per day policy in our example would grow to $400 per day in twenty year with simple inflation protection but would grow to $505.39 with compound inflation protection.

For more information, visit Jim’s website.

Jim Koewler’s mission is
“Protecting Seniors and People with Special Needs.”

For help with long term care or with planning for someone with special needs,
call Jim, or contact him through his website.

© 2014 The Koewler Law Firm.  All rights reserved.

IRAs and 401Ks are not for tax avoidance. They are for tax timing.

The money in your IRA and 401K hasn’t been taxed yet.  (A few special IRAs contain already-taxed money, but those are not the subject of today’s post.)  SOMEONE IS GOING TO PAY TAXES ON THAT MONEY.  If you come to realize that retirement savings accounts (IRAs, 401Ks, 403Bs, etc.) help you time taxes but do not help avoid taxes, you and your family will lose less of that money to taxes.

(I’ll call them IRAs for the rest of the post so I can save my typing fingers and my sanity.  My comments still apply equally to 401Ks, 403Bs, etc.)

The power of an IRA lies in the ability it gives you to choose when you will take the money out and pay the income tax on the withdrawn money.  The ideal strategy is to start taking money out when your non-IRA income drops after you stop working.  For most people, that time is when they retire.  (For people with deferred compensation packages, the ideal time is after the deferred compensation ends.)  Except for IRA money that you need during the year to sustain your lifestyle, you should look at your income near the end of each year and then withdraw from your IRA the amount of money that will increase your income up close to the top of the tax bracket.  If your IRA has lots of money, you may want to withdraw enough to take you close to the top of the next tax bracket.

Your aim is to take withdrawals over a period of years (somewhere between 3 and 10 years, depending on how big your IRA is when you retire) so that the income is spread out over time, and your annual income in any one year doesn’t jump into a much higher tax bracket.  Better to be in a lower tax bracket for several years running than to be in a high tax bracket in even one year.

You don’t want to stretch the payments out over your life expectancy because, as you age, the risk of long term care goes up.  When you need long term care, you may be forced to withdraw from your IRA all at once, so you’ll want to have your IRA low or empty before your risk of long term care gets too high.  (Remember, I’m in Ohio.  If you’re in a state like Florida that doesn’t count IRAs as assets when applying for Medicaid, you may want to keep your IRA intact as long as possible.)

More on this topic in future posts.

For more information visit www.ProtectingSeniors.com

Jim Koewler’s mission is
Protecting a Senior’s Life Savings™
from the costs of long term care

For help with long term care costs, call Jim
or contact him through his website.

© 2014 The Koewler Law Firm.  All rights reserved.

New Ohio Medicaid financial standards after cost of living adjustments

The Medicaid program helps pay for long term care (nursing home, assisted living, or in-home care) for many seniors.  The Medicaid rules allow the patient and the patient’s spouse to keep certain amounts of their savings and certain amounts from their monthly income.  As of January 2014, Ohio’s Medicaid program allows the following amounts:
Savings patient can keep: $1,500
Savings spouse at home can keep: $23,448 – $117,240
Monthly income patient can keep: $45
Monthly income allowance for spouse: $1,939 – $2,898
Monthly housing allowance for spouse at home: $582
Monthly utility allowance for spouse at home: $456
What Medicaid pays nursing homes each month: $6,114
Limit on equity in home:  $543,000

Note:  Because this information is an update of the Medicaid “financial standards,” it also appears on my website’s Medicaid page.

For more information visit www.ProtectingSeniors.com

Jim Koewler’s mission is
Protecting a Senior’s Life Savings™
from the costs of long term care

For help with long term care costs, call Jim
or contact him through his website.

© 2014 The Koewler Law Firm.  All rights reserved.