Preserving Your Eligibility for
Benefits While Protecting Your Assets
Swelled by the ranks of the aging baby boom generation — the concerns elderly Americans have over issues such as nursing home care, Medicaid and Social Security have made elder law one of the fastest growing, rapidly changing areas of legal practice today.
Serving clients in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey, Dugalic & Landau, PC is a premier estate planning law firm offering effective guidance and legal services for elder law concerns. Unlike many firms, estate, probate and elder law issues are not just one small part of our practice, they are almost our entire practice.
Careful planning can not only ensure the kind and quality of nursing care you want, it can keep long-term care costs from depleting your entire estate. Our lawyers can show you how. Call or contact us to schedule an initial consultation today.
Our Practice
Some of the more common services provided and elder law concerns our attorneys can help you address include:
- Medicaid planning
- Long-term care planning
- Long-term care insurance
- Durable powers of attorney
- Guardianships
- Asset protection
- Wealth transfer planning
- Inheritance and estate tax planning
Avoiding the Recovery Claims of Medicaid Providers
In Pennsylvania, Medicaid benefits are administered by Department of Public Welfare. In New Jersey, Medicaid benefits are provided through the Department of Human Services through its Division of Medical Assistance and Health Services.
Unlike Medicare, the benefits and services provided by these state agencies can come at a heavy price. Essentially, once the person who received the benefits dies (the spouse too, if married) — these agencies can make what is known as an estate recovery claim against your estate for the value of what they've provided. This, of course, can significantly reduce the estate and leave little or nothing for the people who have been chosen as beneficiaries.
Avoiding recovery claims or a government spend-down of assets requires proper planning with regard to Medicaid's 5-year look back period. Our attorneys can show you how to use Medicaid planning trusts, asset transfers, annual and one-time gifting exceptions and other effective strategies to preserve your eligibility for benefits and protect your assets at the same time.
We offer free initial consultations, speak Serbian, Croatian, Russian and French and maintain Philadelphia area offices in Upper Darby and Conshohocken, as well as Mount Laurel, New Jersey. Schedule a free consultation today by calling us locally at 610-624-4634, toll free at 1-888-309-6712, or by sending us a brief e-mail message.
