Medicaid Planning – The Secret Sauce and Why You Should Care

Often attorneys portray their specialty as to complex and difficult for the more generalized attorney to learn. These attorneys then encourage self-serving referrals. For example, Medicaid planning attorneys often represent that the details of Medicaid planning are just too complex for the typical estate planning attorney and therefore should not be accepted but rather, referred to an “Elder Law” attorney or more preferably a “Certified Elder Law” attorney like themselves. (However, as a disclaimer there are specialized attorneys that help advance the legal profession and genuinely encourage and help their peers learn new skills. I respect and admire that attitude and acknowledge that those exceptional attorneys do exist and should be recognized).

Obviously, there is an element of truth to the above assumptions; generally speaking. However, what if you, as an estate planning attorney, had at your disposal a company that acted as your consultant regarding asset and income protection strategies? A company that assisted you in determining what might be an appropriate asset and/or income protection plan for an individualized client? What if that company delivered a written asset protection plan to you for your review and modifications for the benefit of the client? What if that company would then carry out the administrative functions of the plan as laid out by you and the client? Functions like gathering all of the identification, insurance and military service documents, asset verifications, income verifications, notifications to nursing homes, execution of the documents (excepting any Qualified Income Trust) created by you using your own software or software provided by the company, fielding all phone calls regarding administrative functions and referring legal questions back to you.  Functions like completing the Medicaid application online, submitting the application to the Department of Children and Families, following the application through to proper completion, communicating with the you, the client, and the nursing home as needed along the way. What if that company offered your client a guarantee refund if the company fails to obtain the benefit because of a failure on the company’s part? What if the consulting and application company had more than 23 years of experience successfully processing nearly 10,000 Medicaid applications? What if you could charge an extremely attractive hourly equivalent flat fee rate for the strategy determination and legal documents?

If all of this is true, would you begin retaining the clients that call asking about Medicaid planning or would you continue to let extremely profitable cases walk out the door and go to your competitor down the street? Make no mistake, the “elder law” attorney is your competitor. That attorney does estate planning also. That attorney is not likely to send the estate planning of the son or daughter who hired him/her back to you.  That attorney will not pay you a referral fee even within the non-reporting limits. Often, that attorney doesn’t even say thank you!

Medicaid planning just isn’t rocket science! In fact, I will sum it up in one sentence. Here is the “secret sauce” – Medicaid planning is the act of converting countable assets into non-countable or exempt assets.  What? That’s it? Yep that’s it. Are there a few exceptions. Yes a few. But just a few. Exceptions you can learn in minutes. So why all the hype about how difficult Medicaid planning is. A few reasons: 1) because real estate law, tax law, trust law, titling law, probate law, insurance law, securities law, and few other areas of law come into play. But wait just a minute, isn’t that exactly the kind of knowledge you already possess? Yes, it is! So now you just have to learn the difference between countable, non-countable, and exempt assets and a few exceptions about the transfer of assets without fair value (gifting) 2) because implementing the plan is a royal pain in the rear 3) prosecuting the application is an even bigger pain, and 4) because, as mentioned before, it is to the advantage of those promoting its difficulty for you to actually believe it’s difficult.

So, number one above is a non-issue since you already have the appropriate knowledge. Number two and three are non-issues if you use a quality, experienced consulting and application company. Number four speaks for itself!

O.K. I get it! How do you know that the consulting and processing company is exceptional at what they do? How about reviewing a book written by the founder of the company (with an extensive background in finance and estate planning) that explains how the cooperative process works and why the founder believes the process is compliant with all Florida Bar rules, how asset and income protection strategies work, how insurance issues play into the process, and lists more than 300 testimonials? How about reviewing software built just for the “newbie” Medicaid planning attorney – sort of a turbo tax style question and answer and the software suggests protection strategies, calculates numerous numbers needed in Medicaid planning, creates documents, and more? How about reviewing internal software for managing and tracking pending cases - In other words, tapping right into the processing company’s software to review your clients HIPAA compliant case info? How about calling and talking to the company founder or experienced processing staff and asking questions? How about considering the testimonials of estate planning peers that used the company services to competently be in the Medicaid planning business virtually overnight with no out of pocket costs? There is more but you get the idea.

Why should you care about Medicaid planning and how easy the “secret sauce” is to understand? Because it translates into helping clients and making money!  So, lets net this all down. 1) Medicaid planning is not a difficult add-on business to your standard estate planning practice, if you do not have to implement strategy or process applications – in fact, it is a natural add-on 2) expertise is a phone call or a mouse click away 3) your current clients are a big part of your future stream of Medicaid cases 4) you can keep the fees you have been sending down the street to your competitor for years and capture the additional clients often generated by such a process 5) You will spend very little time and receive substantial fees for the work involved 6) you can use those fees to better your life and your family’s life however you see fit.

We have helped many attorneys go into the Medicaid planning business virtually overnight and do it very competently. In fact, we have helped existing Medicaid planning attorneys improve their knowledge and skills while streamlining their current practice. Give us a call if you would like to consider the possibility of competently adding Medicaid planning to your practice without adding office space, computers or employees. Platinum Benefit Services, Inc. ask for Jenna or Tony. 1-800-582-1934. #LegalProfession #EstatePlanning #MedicaidPlanning