In this Elder Law Minute, Wes Coulson discusses different types of assets that Medicaid will or will not accept.
Video Transcript:
Greetings, I’m Wes Coulson from Dent Coulson Elder Law and this will be your Elder Law Minute. We are happy to present these because we think we can help inform you as to the ways in which we can help you and the things you need to think about relative to the Elder Care and Estate Planning journey. Hope you enjoy!
This is another in our series of videos on the topic of what an Illinois Medicaid applicant can and can’t keep. Today I want to talk about household goods and personal effects. If you look at the stated rules on that, what they say is that those are exempt, but only up to a limit of two-thousand dollars in value, with one exception; wedding rings and engagement rings are exempt regardless of value. Now I say that, there was on case in Massachusetts in which somebody thought they would do a neat thing for Medicaid planning and they replaced the woman’s wedding ring with something a little bit north of the Hope Diamond, spent a couple hundred thousand dollars on it and the Medicaid agency rejected that, so I think they mean the wedding ring that you’ve already had.
From our personal experience, they tend not to look closely on the value of household goods and personal effects. I tell people you know my clients don’t have stores where they can get top dollar for this so you’d be talking about yard sale value at most. The one thing that they do look for is if people have things that would be of particular value (coin collections, antiques), especially if they have been purchased within the time that they are going to look at your financial records.
I had a client once, who spent twenty-five thousand dollars on five coins from a coin dealer, he was quite the coin collector and we kinda had to realize that we’re not going to be able to say that the silver dollar that he paid a couple thousand dollars for was only worth a dollar. So they will look at specialty items like that. Generally speaking if it’s used in or around the house or you wear it, you’re probably ok.
Thanks.
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Dent-Coulson Elder Law is dedicated to providing families in the St. Louis area with their Elder Law needs. Our practice areas include Asset Preservation Planning, Veterans Benefits, Medicaid Eligibility, Alzheimer’s Planning, Special Needs Planning, Estate Planning and more. We understand the financial challenges you may face as you and your loved ones grow older. At Dent-Coulson Elder Law, our clients’ well-being is our number one priority. For immediate help, call (618) 632-7000 (IL) or (314) 567-9292 (MO), or Contact Us and we will get in touch as soon as possible.
