I often hear people complain about lawyers being expensive. But not using a lawyer when you should can be a very expensive mistake. It is well worth it to have an experienced elder law attorney review your loved one’s nursing home contract before signing, especially if your family is hoping to qualify the patient for Medicaid to avoid the very substantial costs of nursing home private pay rates.
Because Medicaid is a federal law, cases from across the country can affect residents of Illinois. A recent Delaware case (Deborah Miller v. Cadia Rehabilitation, Aug. 26, 2016) is an all to common financial horror story about a daughter who ended up being held personally responsible for her mother’s nursing home bill at the higher private pay rate. This situation could have been prevented had the family engaged an experienced elder law lawyer to review the nursing home contract before signing.
The Delaware Superior Court recently decided that the daughter of a nursing home resident was financially responsible for several months of her mother’s care at private pay rates because the daughter signed the nursing home contract as the “responsible party” and the contract stated that private pay rates must be paid until Medicaid was approved, contrary to the Federal law which provides that the lower Medicaid rate should be charged while a patient’s Medicaid application is pending.
If your family member is currently in rehab or has recently suffered a catastrophic illness, please reach out to me for help. The Medicaid laws and options for long-term care are too complicated to go it alone. An experienced elder law attorney can be of great help.
Here is a link to the Delaware case:
http://courts.delaware.gov/Opinions/Download.aspx?id=245490