How My Miller Trust Saves You Money on Nursing Home Bills
If your spouse is currently in a nursing home or expected to be placed in a nursing home in the near future you might be asking yourself: “why in the world would I create a Miller Trust for my spouse’s income? Isn’t it going to interfere with my ability to use his or her income?” These are common questions and let me demonstrate how my Miller Trust can actually save you a lot of money and therefore might make sense for you.
A nursing home resident only needs my Miller Trust if their income is above the Medicaid income limit. In 2015 the limit is $2,199 in gross monthly income. Now let’s look at some more numbers.
Let’s say your spouse’s nursing home bill is $5,600 every month (that is around the average amount in Texas).
Let’s say your spouse’s income is $2,500 per month.
At this point your spouse’s nursing home costs are causing you a monthly deficit of $3,100 per month because their income is over the Medicaid limit and they will not qualify for nursing home Medicaid. You are losing over $3,000 a month to pay for that nursing home. In just one year that is over $36,000! That is a lot of money.
How Can We Change That?
My Miller Trust exists for situations just like this. My Miller Trust will allow your spouse to be under the Medicaid income limit and qualify for nursing home Medicaid as long as all of the many other eligibility criteria are met (if you do not know all of the other eligibility criteria then a Woodlands Medicaid Attorney might be a wise investment). Once your spouse qualifies for Medicaid the monthly cost of his or her care in this example would be $2,500 (and maybe even less depending on other details!) instead of $5,600. We just eliminated a $3,100 expense for you every month with one step and in just one year that savings added up to over $36,000. That seems to make sense to me.
Do You Lose Your Spouse’s Income?
The answer to this question depends on the specific income, asset, and expense information in your case. But the bottom line is your access to your spouse’s income does not increase or decrease as a result of using my Miller Trust. You have the same access to your spouse’s income as if there was no Miller Trust.
Now that you know a little bit more about my Miller Trust and Texas nursing home Medicaid I encourage you to review your situation and see how much money our 100% guaranteed Miller Trust can save you if you are faced with paying your spouse’s nursing home bills from your own income or assets and would rather save money instead of spending it.
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