Answer Bar: Considering a Special Needs Trust

Session 1: SNT Basics - Take a look at special needs trusts and things to consider when selecting the appropriate option. Gain insight on the intersection of trusts with governmental benefits and delve into the types of special needs trust with case examples.

Session 2: Special Needs Trusts: Decision Tree Analysis - Learn how to utilize a decision tree approach to ask and answer key questions concerning a client's need for a special needs trust, and if one is needed, which type of special needs trust is the best choice.

Session 3: Maximizing Public Benefits - Make note of top tips for establishing and maintaining public benefits, especially SSI, Medicaid, Medicare Savings Programs, Disabled Adult Child; and an update on the latest and greatest recent changes in public benefits.

Session 4: Emerging Trends in SNTs - Imagine that you are a parent of a 17-year-old child named Kathy who has been diagnosed with Autism, and expected to live until she is 87 years old. Learn about challenges that Kathy’s trustee would need to address if her parents passed away over the next 70 years including current and future laws and regulations, ABLE Accounts, support systems and government aid. Highlight current challenges in different Social Security Administration Regions across the nation, and how those trends could affect the Texas Special Needs Trust practitioners.

Session 5: Making Sense of Structured Settlements - Structured settlements are often used to fund court-created SNTs in the personal injury context. Drafting attorneys and trustees need an understanding of the fundamental concepts of a structured settlement annuity and the effects one will have on the funding and administration of a trust.

Session 6: Pooled Trusts: A Creative Solution for Thorny Problems - Situations come up where a traditional special needs trust isn’t the best option and Pooled Trusts can provide a beneficial alternative. Not sure if there is a trustee available? Too much for an ABLE account? No viable family members available to serve? Pooled Trusts can serve as a your solution! Learn about the creative solutions The Arc of Texas and other pooled trusts can provide.

Session 7: SSA Regional Trust Leads Presentation Regarding SSI Trusts - A discussion with the Regional Trust Leads on the regional centralization of the SSI trust review business process, including 2019 POMS updates. In addition, hear about drafting errors, including case examples.

Session 8: Working with the Social Security Administration: Appeals, Overpayments and ISM Charges - Gain a better understanding of the timeline and process of appeals, options for managing overpayments, and strategies to eliminate in-kind support and maintenance charges.

Session 9: View from CMS - A discussion with a representative of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services of current issues related to the Medicare Secondary Payer provisions. What's new, what's not.

Includes: Video Audio Paper Slides