I hear this a lot. Let’s be clear on the very basics. If you’ve watched friends go to a nursing home and “lose the house,” it’s not the nursing home forcing them to sell. Like all medical providers, nursing homes need to be paid.
Your Medicare and supplemental health insurance policy (ex. MediGap) will pay for up to 100 days – after that, you are on your own. At that point, some people have the ability to privately pay, and they use their savings, and perhaps even sell the home to pay the monthly bill. Other people don’t have savings or even a home to convert, and they ask the state to pay the bill (that’s MassHealth, also called Medicaid).
And there is a third category of folks, where there is a spouse living at home who simply can’t afford to use her savings to pay $10,000 – $12,000 per month to the nursing home if she is going to be able to continue supporting herself at home. She may do some planning so she can ask MassHealth to pay for her spouse’s nursing home care while also being able to retain enough of her assets to support herself at home without living in fear of poverty.
If you are living at home and your spouse needs nursing home care, contact our office so we can help you protect yourself while also making sure your spouse receives the medical care he needs.