The 5-Year Look-Back Rule & Transfers of Assets Between Spouses

In this Elder Law Minute, Wes Coulson explains how DCEL can help you protect your assets as a married couple.
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"Your Trusted Advisor on the Elder Care Journey"
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 [phone], [phone], or [phone].
THREE LOCATIONS
O'FALLON ILLINOIS OFFICE
774 Sunset Blvd., Suite 200
O'Fallon, IL 62269
618-632-7000
EFFINGHAM ILLINOIS OFFICE
415 W Virginia Ave
Effingham, IL 62401
217-330-5500
ST. LOUIS AREA OFFICE
2200 Westport Plaza Dr., Suite 221
St. Louis, MO 63146
314-567-9292
CONTACT US
Email: [e-mail]
Phone: [phone] or 217-330-5500 or 314-567-9292
www.dentcoulsonelderlaw.com
Facebook: dentcoulsonelder
Video Transcript:
Greetings! I'm Wes Coulson from Dent Coulson Elder Law, and this will be your Elder Law Minute. We're happy to present these because we think we can help inform you about the ways in which we can assist you and the things that you need to consider relative to the elder care and estate planning journey. We hope you enjoy.
Today, I want to talk to you about the Medicaid look-back rule, which causes transfer penalties, and how that impacts transfers of assets between spouses in a situation where one spouse is going to be applying for Medicaid. The interesting thing is, the answer is that it does not-as long as those things are done in advance of the application.
When a married person applies for Medicaid nursing home benefits, although there are separate asset limits that apply to each spouse, they don't look at them separately but rather as a couple. So, because of that circumstance, when assets are transferred from one spouse to another, it is the legal equivalent of me taking my phone out of this pocket and putting it in this pocket. It never left my pair of pants; it's still in the same place as it was before.
Now, that may not seem all that important, but it truly is because the crux of the planning that we do for a married couple involves protecting assets through what's known as the community spouse-the one who's not in the nursing home. So, in fact, the ability to get assets out of the name of the spouse who is going to be applying for Medicaid into the name of the other spouse is one of the most powerful planning tools that we have at our disposal.
Hope this helps. You can learn a lot by coming to visit us. There's an awful lot we can do to help protect your assets from being lost to nursing home costs.
Thanks