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As life circumstances change (births, marriages, divorces, and deaths), it may become necessary to make changes to your will.  If an estate plan is not kept up-to-date, it can become useless.  

For better and for worse, Medicaid is the primary method of paying for nursing home care in the United States. But navigating the Medicaid system is complicated and confusing. Here are the basics. 

Increasingly, several generations of American families are living together. These multi-generational living arrangements present legal and financial challenges around home ownership.

Long-term care involves not only a loss of personal autonomy; it also comes at a tremendous financial price. Proper planning can help your family prepare for the financial toll and protect assets for future generations.

While a will is one of the most important estate planning documents you can have, there are things that it won’t cover.

Medicare and Medicaid are two different government programs for healthcare.  It is important to understand the difference between them.  Here, we will discuss how the program benefits differ, how eligibility for each program is established, and discuss some recent news pertaining to each program.

Medicare is not free; there are premiums and deductibles. If you don't qualify for Medicaid and can't afford a Medigap policy, you may be able to get help paying for the costs of Medicare.

Long-term care costs can add up quickly. For veterans and the surviving spouses of veterans who need in-home care or are in a nursing home, help may be available.

Revocable trusts are a very popular and useful estate planning tool. But the trust will be ineffective if you do not actually place your assets in the trust.

Don’t assume your estate will automatically go to your spouse when you die. If you don’t have an estate plan, your spouse may have to share your estate with other family members.

The IRS has announced that the tax deduction for medical expenses includes amounts spent on face masks, sanitizer and other products purchased to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Medicaid planning can be a difficult and confusing process. The following are some common mistakes people make when planning to apply for Medicaid.

The one-year deadline for nursing home residents on Medicaid to spend down their first round of stimulus checks is here, but they may have a little extra time. 

I review a lot of existing estate plans, and I see a lot of estate plans that are terrible and beyond repair. Why? Sometimes the reason is they were created by a "trust mill".

Vermont senator Bernie Sanders (D) has introduced legislation that would require more estates to pay estate tax and that raises the amounts they would pay. Another proposed law would eliminate the step-up in basis that inherited assets currently enjoy.  

Pets are members of the family, so it is important to consider how to provide for them in your estate plan just as you would the human family members.

Life insurance can play a few key roles in an estate plan, depending on your age and situation in life.

Netflix’s popular new movie, I Care a Lot, may be far-fetched in a lot of ways, but it does highlight some real weaknesses in the guardianship system that make it possible for an unscrupulous guardian to take control of an elderly person’s life and bleed their resources dry.

Just as we create estate plans for our eventual demise, we also need to plan ahead for the possibility that we will become sick and unable to make our own medical decisions.

As the second (and maybe third) round of stimulus checks go out, it is important to know that nursing home residents are not required to turn their checks over to their nursing home.

A new administration usually means that tax code changes are coming. While it remains unclear exactly what tax changes the Biden administration will usher in, two possibilities are that it will propose lowering the estate tax exemption and eliminating the stepped-up basis on death.

A trust is a legal arrangement through which one person (or an institution, such as a bank or law firm), called a "trustee," holds legal title to property for another person, called a "beneficiary."

Estate administration is the process of managing and distributing a person’s property (the “estate”) after death. If the person had a will, the will goes through probate, which is the process by which the deceased person's property is passed to his or her heirs and legatees (people named in the will).

The choice to move into assisted living can be a difficult one, but it can also be the best decision. Yet, that can leave seniors wondering whether or not to sell their homes. Thankfully, you have quite a few options at your disposal.

Choosing a nursing home for a loved one is a difficult decision and it can only be made more confusing by the various rating systems. A recent study found that using both Medicare’s Nursing Home Compare site and user reviews can help with the decision making.