re: Wills & Paying For Nursing Home Question

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Also, don't count on inheriting any thing of value from your grandmother.

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At this point it is just a matter of finding out exactly what happened.

That's fricked up, dementia or not. If what you're saying is true and that attorney knew your grandmother was coerced into signing a new will, that's professional malpractice.

My father had a type of lung cancer that frequently metastasized to the brain. After chemo and radiation, his PET scans were clean and he was doing well. Out of an abundance of caution, his oncology team recommended 28 radiation sessions to his brain. So we did it.

I don't know what went wrong, but he experienced a very rapid onset of dementia. He went from sharp as a tack to being unable to read, tell time or so simple arithmetic in about 10 or 12 weeks. The oncologists had never seen that happen so quickly before, not that that did my father any good.

Anyway, he could still sign his name and make pretty decent sense when he was talking. If you were watching a football game with him, you probably wouldn't notice he had any problem (unless he tried to eat). He had a few minor legal affairs to take care of and the documents needed to be notarized. My cousin is an attorney and notary and she had planned on taking care of it for him prior to his mental condition changing. By the time we got around to trying to take care of the legal stuff, she knew he wasn't mentally competent. Even though she knew what his and my mother's wishes were prior to his decline, she wouldn't notorize the documents because technically, it was an ethics or legal violation. (I cant remember which).

This is one area that I practice in. Seriously, go speak with a lawyer if you have questions. Most will give you a free consultation for a half hour to an hour and help answer a lot of your questions.

Medicaid planning is state dependent since it is a program administered by the states. Some states are more lenient than others when it comes to turning non exempt assets into exempt assets (and other planning tools). For instance, in my state I could get someone qualified for Medicaid and still keep a million+ of assets still in their name. Not that I would do that, but there is a lot of room for planning if you find a good lawyer.

Competency depends on the state. Some states it's just a fleeting moment of capacity. Someone could be crazy for 90% of the day and have one period of full lucidity -- bam they have capacity to sign. Obviously if the person has been declared incompetent that's a whole different story

Would a Life Estate to the children, 5 years from going into a home, suffice?

Call a lawyer to deal with this. It’s amazing how people believe a will means anything before death and how a power of attorney means something after death.

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Are you being sent to a home? Yeah, to your mom's home.

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My grandmother passed last year after being in a home for about 15 years, at over $70k per year. She did no planning and didn't qualify for Medicaid, but would have had she lived a few more years.

Louisiana has a very strong nursing home lobby (and a few nursing home owners serving in the legislature). Recall that it was bribes in exchange for nursing home licenses that were at the root of Gov. Edwards' first trial in the 1980's.

Over 28,000 people are on waiting lists for home health alternatives to institutional care, but each year the legislature refuses to shift funding to increase such services. Old people prefer to be cared for at home, and it would be cheaper, but instead the state provides automatic rate increases to nursing homes that are ranked among the worst in the nation. In the current session a bill to increase home health was shot down in committee 6-2.

Your leges at work

Long term care insurance is really hit or miss. There's a lot of issues with older plans and new plans are very, very expensive.

Yep, sound about right to me.