National Nursing Home Week (NNHW) is being celebrated May 13-19, 2012 by nursing homes in Arizona and across the country. NNHW appreciates the employees, volunteers, residents, and family members at nursing homes throughout the United States. This year, the week’s theme is Celebrating the Journey, a theme that honors the lives and milestones of center residents and rejoices the new journey they have begun at the nursing homes. Homes allow their residents to continue living life to the fullest, regardless of age, disability, or frailty. Nursing homes provide countless benefits to their residents and the family members of residents. When
Archive for the ‘Senior News’ Category
Celebrating National Nursing Home Week
15 May 2012 by admin | Senior News | Comments offWhat To Do When A Loved One Dies: Checklist
8 November 2011 by admin | Senior News | Comments offMake funeral arrangements Did your loved one already make arrangements or leave instructions? An experienced funeral director can be very helpful and offer a variety of helpful services, including obtaining death certificates (usually between 5 and 10 are needed). Notify people of the death Family & Friends Note: Failure to notify even a distant or estranged family member can engender deep feelings of mistrust and resentment. Employer, Social Security, VA, Pension, etc. Insurance, Banks, Brokerages, IRAs, etc. Gather important documents Bank statements Bills Car titles Deeds to real property Estate plan (will, trust, etc.) Life insurance policies and Annuities Safe
Medicare vs. Medicaid
10 October 2011 by twhite | ALTCS, Medicare, Senior News | No CommentsIt is not uncommon for people to confuse Medicare with Medicaid. As a reminder, Medicare is an entitlement program that is available to everybody age 65 and older. There are four parts to Medicare: Part A, which covers hospital visits; Part B, which covers doctor’s visits; Part C, which is a managed care plan; and Part D, which covers prescription drugs. You may be asking yourself which part of Medicare covers long-term health care, and the answer to this question is that it really doesn’t. Medicare only covers the first 100 days of care in a long-term medical facility, although
Examine an ALTCS denial closely
30 September 2011 by twhite | ALTCS, Senior News | No CommentsIf you have recently applied for Arizona Medicaid, and were denied ALTCS eligibility, you do not have to take the denial at face value. In other words, there is always a possibility that you either qualify already, or that you are very close to qualifying for ALTCS Medicaid. Stories abound about ALTCS eligibility workers who make errors in determining eligibility, so your recent denial may in fact be an error. Further, it is not the job of an ALTCS eligibility worker to tell you how to engage in ALTCS planning, so you may be much closer to Arizona Medicaid eligibility
Medicaid Home & Community Based Services
11 July 2011 by twhite | ALTCS, Alzheimer's and Memory Care, Right to the Point, Senior News | No CommentsThe ALTCS benefit provides a continuum of benefits to those who qualify. And contrary to common misconception, the benefit covers services beyond those offered in a nursing facility or assisted living center. Rather, through the ALTCS program, Arizona Medicaid provides Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) to individuals right in their home. The idea here is that by receiving care in the home, people can stay healthy longer and perhaps even avoid nursing home care altogether. One issue that sometimes arises with HCBS recipients, however, is that their well spouse becomes overwhelmed with caregiving responsibilities. As much as a well
The many names for Medicaid
4 July 2011 by twhite | ALTCS, Medicare, Senior News | No CommentsWhat is the difference between Medicaid, AHCCCS, & ALTCS If you have started looking into Arizona Medicaid with a Medicaid attorney, you might be wondering why it is sometimes called Medicaid, sometimes called AHCCCS, and sometimes called ALTCS. Some simple clarification will probably be quite helpful. Medicaid is the general term describing the federal program that provides health care to the poor, blind, disabled and elderly. Each state has its own version of the Medicaid program, and Arizona Medicaid is called Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, or AHCCCS (pronounced “access”) for short. Within AHCCCS, there are two branches, one
Qualifying for Arizona Long-Term Healthcare
22 June 2011 by twhite | ALTCS, Medicare, Senior News | No CommentsMost people who apply for Arizona Medicaid do so because they genuinely need help paying for their long-term health care. Simply put, most people with the resources to afford long-term health care pay for that care, and save themselves the worry and trouble of applying for a benefit for which they will not qualify. But even though most ALTCS Medicaid applicants really need help paying for their long-term care, the vast majority of applicants are denied eligibility. And unfortunately, many of these applicants never reapply for the benefit because they do not know of the ALTCS planning tools that could
Long-term care qualifications may be changing to espouse equality for gay couples
20 June 2011 by twhite | ALTCS, Recent News, Senior News | No CommentsGiven that it is such a controversial issue, nearly everybody has an opinion on whether gay couples should be allowed to marry. These opinions are typically based on perceived morality issues or the legal rights that gay couples do or do not have. As to the legal rights issue, Medicaid long-term care qualifications are no doubt different for gay couples than they are for heterosexual couples. It is not that the long-term care qualifications are on their face discriminatory, but in their application they treat gay and heterosexual couples quite disparately. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, however, has
Does Arizona Medicaid cover dental services?
7 June 2011 by twhite | ALTCS, Senior News | No CommentsOne question that comes up about Arizona Medicaid is whether the ALTCS benefit covers dental services. Unfortunately, while dental services were covered for a brief time back in 2008, Arizona Medicaid no longer provides these services to members. As you can probably surmise, the reason for this is that the state simply does not have the funding to cover dental care for Arizona Medicaid members. Even though the ALTCS benefit does not cover dental services, however, there is a way that ALTCS members can recoup some of the costs of routine dental care. ALTCS requires members to pay what is
Be careful with gifts when applying to ALTCS
6 June 2011 by twhite | ALTCS, Senior News | No CommentsAmong other things, to qualify for Arizona Medicaid, single ALTCS applicants can have no more than $3,000 in countable assets. The obvious – but incorrect – solution for an applicant whose assets exceed the threshold is to simply give away enough assets to meet the requirement. In fact, adult children come in all of the time with the idea that they can transfer $100,000 of their mother’s money to various family members so that their mom can obtain Arizona Medicaid eligibility. Of course, if it was this easy, there would be no need for ALTCS planning, and the Medicaid program would
|
Do you need
our help? Call us now for a consultation, form below. |
480-818-6912
|
|
|
