Pittsburgh Elder Law Blog

Medicaid/Medical Assistance Planning is something that your family may need to consider. As your parents become older and their health deteriorates, it can be helpful to begin thinking ahead to a time when they might need to take up residence in a Pennsylvania nursing home. No one wants to go into a nursing home; so, this can be one of the most difficult situations a family ever faces. It will become even more difficult when you discover the high costs of long-term care.

Even if your parents are reasonably well-to-do people, they likely have not accumulated the assets necessary to pay for long-term care and may not have long-term care insurance to help cover the expenses, which, in 2019, may be over $10,000 per month in Pennsylvania. Consequently, they may need to spend down their assets and apply for Medicaid. This is when you discover that, while Medicaid does indeed pay for long-term care, there are medical eligibility requirements as well as income and asset limits to qualify. Not everyone is eligible for Medicaid.

Guardianships may be of benefit to certain types of individuals in Pennsylvania. These individuals may include elderly loved ones, persons who are unable to handle their own financial or medical decisions due to some type of impairment or minors with special needs who are about to come of age. Sikov and Love, P.A., is here to help you through all the hurdles of determining if a guardianship is appropriate and establishing a guardianship though the Orphans' Court.

In the case of elderly loved ones or impaired family members, guardianships will let you manage their money and assets for them so that you don't have to worry about them recklessly spending or giving away money or losing track of paying their bills. Guardianships are also helpful for making healthcare and placement decisions, if your loved ones need medical treatment or possible placement in a personal care home, an assisted living facility or a nursing home.

Creating Wills and other estate planning documents may feel a bit onerous for many people in Pennsylvania. Once an estate plan is in place, however, many people feel very good about having prepared a plan and then assume that they do not have to think about these matters again. However, the reality is that an estate plan should be considered a living set of documents. Knowing when and why to review Wills and other estate planning documents is important.

Aging Care recommends that a person make estate plan review a priority after any significant change in their personal estate value or personal life relationships. For example, if they buy or sell a piece of real estate or otherwise acquire a new asset of substantial worth, it would be important for a Will to reflect the current assets. If a person becomes widowed or divorced or gets married, he or she should also update estate planning documents. The same is true for the birth or death of any beneficiary.

In Pennsylvania and across the United States, drug addiction and abuse continue to plague many families. The impacts of this epidemic seem to have no end and among them include the need for children to be cared for by someone other than their own parents. In some situations, it is a grandparent who steps up to the plate to take care of a granddaughter or grandson when their own adult son or daughter is not able to do so.

As reported last autumn by the Pittsburg Post-Gazette, a bill was passed in the state legislature that is designed to provide some assistance to families in which grandparents have had to take over parenting. Opioid addiction is one of the factors identified as a reason for this in many of the cases. The effort is intended to facilitate access to financial resources.