If you or your loved one is considering Medicaid as a long-term care option, we understand that money is probably a significant factor in your decision-making process. There are resources that will provide free assistance with the Medicaid application processes, like Area Agencies on Aging (AAA), legal aid organizations, pro bono legal programs and State Health Insurance Plans or SHIPs, which are known by various names in different states. While those resources can provide help, many of them are too overwhelmed to be reliable or thorough, and some only offer basic information. Plus, if you or your loved one is over the state’s Medicaid financial limits, free assistance is probably not an option.

Seniors who don’t know if they meet Medicaid’s financial limits can click here now to use a national, Medicaid long-term care eligibility criteria search tool to find out. If you are over the limits and want help, or if you’re not making any progress finding free assistance, connect with our team of professionals at Eldercare Resource Planning.

Medicaid Application Support vs. Medicaid Planning

Medicaid application support means getting help with properly completing and submitting the application forms. This might include help gathering all of the financial paperwork that can be required along with the Medicaid application, which is the most time-consuming part of the process. Most of the help available from free resources will be Medicaid application support.

Medicaid planning, on the other hand, refers to assistance with strategies that can help seniors meet Medicaid’s financial limits by reorganizing and reducing their financial resources. These strategies are complicated and if not done correctly they could lead to a penalty period of Medicaid ineligibility, which is why using a professional like one of our Certified Medicaid Planners is strongly recommended for seniors who are over the financial limits but want to qualify for Medicaid. Because if these strategies are used correctly, they can help seniors qualify for the long-term care they need while preserving resources so they can be used by spouses or passed on to children, or both. It is rare that free resources will provide help with Medicaid planning, or provide any help at all to people who are over Medicaid’s financial limits.

Whether they need assistance with planning or with the application, seniors with complicated finances probably will not get the full range of help they need for free. For seniors with uncomplicated finances, a point in the right direction or a few words of advice from a free resource may be all the help they need to apply for Medicaid. Still, either process can become overly complex in a hurry.

Free Medicaid Assistance Options

The following are the most widely-used free Medicaid assistance options:

Area Agencies on Aging

There are more than 600 organizations nationwide that form the Area Agencies on Aging (AAA) network. Many of them have Area Agency on Aging in their name, like the Western Reserve Area Agency on Aging in Cleveland, Ohio. But many of the organizations in the AAA network are named like a county office, such as the Los Angeles County Aging and Disability Department in California, or the Suffolk County Office for the Aging in New York.

Each AAA organization serves a specific geographic location. Most often it’s a county or counties, but it can vary by agency, even within a state. This speaks to the main challenge with AAAs – each one offers different services, even within the same state, and there is no online search tool to find which offices provide which services. This means one has to contact the AAA just to find out if they offer any assistance with Medicaid applications. For seniors who need help with Medicaid planning, there is no need to contact an AAA office because they do not provide assistance with planning.

AAA offices that do offer Medicaid application support will do so through a Benefits Counselor, also called a Benefits Case Manager. While these people may provide seniors with hands-on help completing the application paperwork, they will not offer hands-on help when it comes to gathering the required financial documents. At best, they will inform seniors which documents they need and where to find them.

Even if an Area Agency on Aging has a Benefits Counselor that offers Medicaid application support, seniors should be aware that it can be difficult connecting with anyone at the AAA and actually getting that support. In our experience working with AAAs, they are full of hard-working, dedicated and helpful individuals who are often overwhelmed and understaffed. Seniors should also be warned that some AAA locations may only provide information about how to apply for Medicaid, and not actual hands-on help.

AAA Pros
• Can provide free information and guidance
• Benefits Counselors may provide Medicaid application support

AAA Cons
• Will not provide Medicaid planning assistance
• Services offered vary by office
• Some offices may only offer information on Medicaid
• Often understaffed and overwhelmed

Click here to use a search tool that can locate AAA offices by zip code or city.

Legal Aid Organizations

There are roughly 130 legal services centers across the country that offer legal assistance to financially limited Americans. They don’t help with all legal matters, but these nonprofit legal aid centers do provide help with Medicaid and other public benefits.

Most of these centers have strict, and low, financial limits. So, if a senior needs help with Medicaid planning because they are over Medicaid’s financial limit, chances are they won’t meet the financial limit for the legal services center. However, some legal services centers have more moderate limits, and some Medicaid planning cases may meet the less severe restrictions.

Financially limited seniors who only need help with the application process are more likely to find some of the help they need at legal services centers. While these organizations will assist with completing the application paperwork and inform the senior which financial documents they need for the application, they will not provide hands-on help actually gathering those documents.

Like Area Agencies on Aging, many of these centers are overwhelmed with requests for assistance and they simply don’t have the staff to provide that help. In our experience, a local Area Agency on Aging may refer a senior to the nearest legal services center, which may try to refer the senior back to the Area Agency on Aging.

Click here to use a search tool from the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) that can locate legal aid organizations across the country. LSC is a nonprofit entity established by Congress in 1974 to provide financial support for civil legal aid. It currently funds legal aid organizations in every state and the District of Columbia.

Pro Bono Legal Services

Pro bono legal programs connect volunteering lawyers with financially limited individuals who are in need of legal help. In our experience, pro bono lawyers offer free guidance to seniors when it comes to long-term care, but they don’t actually create plans, organize documents or complete applications. And they are not necessarily familiar with Medicaid.

The American Bar Association keeps track of all pro bono programs across the country and lists them in a directory you can access by clicking here.

State Health Insurance Assistance Program

The State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP) provides financially limited seniors with free assistance, counseling and education concerning Medicare. Some SHIP counselors may know about Medicaid, but these counselors are usually volunteers who have been trained by the local SHIP office. In general, they will refer seniors with questions about Medicaid to the state Medicaid offices.

The Administration for Community Living’s Office of Healthcare Information and Counseling manages SHIP, working with offices in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Some states use different names for the program, such as the Senior Health Insurance Information Program (SHIIP) in Arkansas, the Health Insurance Counseling and Advocacy Program (HICAP) in California and Serving Health Insurance Needs of Elders (SHINE) in Florida.

Insurance Agents

Insurance agents selling annuities may claim to offer free assistance with Medicaid planning, but seniors should be very wary in these situations.

A Medicaid Compliant Annuity might be a sound Medicaid planning strategy for some seniors, but in order for it work the annuity has to meet Medicaid standards. If it doesn’t, a purchasing senior could be penalized with a period of Medicaid ineligibility. That may matter to some annuities salespeople, but the best interest of the customer is usually not their priority.

Not all states treat annuities the same in terms of Medicaid, but, in general, annuities must meet the following conditions to be considered Medicaid compliant:

• They must be irrevocable, non-transferable and actuarially sound.
• The payments must be immediate and fixed (as opposed to deferred or variable).
• The beneficiary must be the state.
• The owner of the annuity must get back all of what was paid during their life expectancy.

While Medicaid Compliant Annuities can help a senior get under the Medicaid asset limit, it’s important to remember the income from the annuity payments, which must begin immediately, will count toward the senior’s Medicaid income limit.

What Our Certified Medicaid Planners Offer in Initial Consultations

If you or your loved one can’t find enough information or assistance from the free resources in your area, you should click here to connect with one of our Certified Medicaid Planners (CMPs) for an initial consultation, which is free.

During an initial call (or discovery call, as we refer to it), our CMPs will find out the applicant’s age, marital status, state of residence, if they need help with the Activities of Daily Living, what type of Medicaid Long Term Care they are applying for and their current healthcare situation. Our CMPs will also ask about the applicant’s financial situation including their income, assets, IRAs, life insurance policies, veteran and home ownership status. They’ll also determine if the applicant needs a Power of Attorney, a lawyer, a decision maker and how urgent their situation is.

If our CMPs believe we can assist the caller after that discovery call, they will set up a second call with one of our Benefits Advisors. The Advisor will go over the caller’s financial situation and a general plan to gain Medicaid eligibility (if necessary), and then then provide a quote for our services.

Medicaid Assistance Comparison Table