Answer Bar: Elder Law and Medicaid Essentials

Session 01: Medicaid Update - Latest developments affecting planning and applications for Medicaid to pay for nursing home care and home care.

Session 02: What All Estate and Probate Attorneys Need to Know About Medicaid Planning and Drafting - Issue-spotting and discussion highlighting elder law issues for which every estate planner and probate attorney should be on the lookout.

Session 03: The View from 30, 000 feet – Medicaid Myths All Attorney's Should Know - Join Stephanie as she explains Medicaid and Medicare mythbusting and challenges common misconceptions about: MERP, Medicaid, and Medicare, as well as protecting the home and other assets with Transfer on Death Planning and Couples Planning for Medicaid.

Session 04: When Your Client May Have Diminished Capacity - In estate planning and elder law, attorneys often have clients that may be in some stage of diminished capacity. This creates ethical and legal issues for the attorney that can’t be ignored. Explore those issues and ways the attorney can navigate these turbulent waters.

Session 05: Real Estate Issues in Elder Law - Review issues to better protect your clients, including homestead and agricultural exemptions; recent changes; to inspect or not, what could possibly go wrong; easements; and transactions with an affidavit of heirship within four years of date of death. 

Session 06: Role of the Guardian - Examine the duties and responsibilities of a guardian under Texas law and guardianship administration, from initiation to closing, including the code requirements of selling and leasing property, ethical issues, and more.

Session 07: Alternatives to Guardianship Including Supports and Services - An examination and discussion from the perspectives of the bench and in practice on lesser restrictive alternatives and available supports and services in guardianship. Which work? Which do not? And, how, in every case, the answer is, "It depends."

Session 08: Medicaid Matters and Probate Proceedings - Join Stephanie as she explores how to protect homes from the Medicaid Estate Recovery Program [MERP] through probate proceedings, in addition to understanding the basics of protecting homes from the reach of MERP in the first place. Independent administrations may not always be the best choice, particularly in cases where no statutory waivers apply.

Includes: Video Audio Paper Slides