Join Kosta and his guest: Jason Neufeld, Elder Law Attorney and Partner at Elder Needs Law, PLLC.
Jason currently serves on the Miami Mayor's Initiative in Aging, The Academy of Florida Elder Law Attorneys, and The National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys.
Today we’re talking about why you need an Elder Law Attorney.
In this episode: what age should someone consult an Elder Law Attorney to start planning for things like Medicaid, Probate, and Estate Planning, how to find a qualified and knowledgeable Elder Law Attorney, and unavoidable truths when it comes to long-term care planning and securing your estate.
Watch this episode on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0CZkq-nGSw
Find out more about Jason Neufeld and Elder Needs Law, PLLC:
https://www.elderneedslaw.com/
Buy Jason's Book on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Medicaid-some-your-long-term-expenses/dp/1513634712
Find out more about Kosta Yepifantsev:
http://kostayepifantsev.com/
Join Kosta and his guest: Jason Neufeld, Elder Law Attorney and Partner at Elder Needs Law, PLLC.
Jason currently serves on the Miami Mayor's Initiative in Aging, The Academy of Florida Elder Law Attorneys, and The National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys.
Today we’re talking about why you need an Elder Law Attorney.
In this episode: what age should someone consult an Elder Law Attorney to start planning for things like Medicaid, Probate, and Estate Planning, how to find a qualified and knowledgeable Elder Law Attorney, and unavoidable truths when it comes to long-term care planning and securing your estate.
Watch this episode on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0CZkq-nGSw
Find out more about Jason Neufeld and Elder Needs Law, PLLC:
https://www.elderneedslaw.com/
Buy Jason's Book on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Medicaid-some-your-long-term-expenses/dp/1513634712
Find out more about Kosta Yepifantsev:
http://kostayepifantsev.com/
I'd say 55 and older ought to consider meeting with an elder law attorney, even just for general estate planning purposes. Let me give you an example. Something as simple as a power of attorney. A lot of people think those are template documents that you can download off the Internet for free, and you'll be fine. And what happens is often, often what the case is these documents you find online for free, but for a limited purpose, right? So it's good for things like going to the bank. It may even be good for things like dealing with your real estate, but they're often what they often fail, is where you need more advanced planning.
Caroline Moore:Welcome to Now or Never Long-Term Care Strategy with Kosta Yepifantsev, a podcast for all those seeking answers and solutions in the long-term care space. This podcast is designed to create resources, start conversations and bring awareness to the industry that will inevitably impact all Americans. Here’s your host, Kosta Yepifantsev
Kosta Yepifantsev:Hey, y'all, this is Costa and today I'm here with my guest, Jason Neufeld, elder law attorney and partner at elder needs law. Jason currently serves on the Miami mayor's initiative in aging, and also the Academy of Florida elder law attorneys and the National Academy of Elder Law attorneys. Today we're talking about why you need an elder law attorney. So Jason, let's start with the basics. What is Elder Law?
Jason Neufeld:Yeah, absolutely. And caster, thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure to be on your show. And it's a great question, because Elder Law is really more than one thing. Elder Law is an umbrella term for different disciplines in the legal field. So there's some areas of elder law that your listeners and viewers are undoubtedly familiar with, right? There's wills and trusts and powers of attorney right estate planning and capacity planning. And we do a lot of that. There's probate right what happens to your assets after you pass away, if you haven't done a lot of pre planning, right, a lot of people are familiar with that. And then there's some areas of elder law that are less well known. For example, Medicaid planning, which is which is kind of what we're known for in the state of Florida, which is the idea behind Medicaid planning is long term care, very expensive. Most people it a lot of people are worried about, you know, creditors and bankruptcy and things like that. And statistically speaking, the biggest threat to our clients, financial livelihood is the threat of long term care. And what we're able to do as Medicaid planning attorneys is legally and ethically protect their assets and get them access to their state Medicaid program that will allow them to receive care in the home care in an assisted living facility or care in a nursing home where normally you'd have to go broke first before you're qualified. So we want to want to step in there before they become broke to get access to those services.
Kosta Yepifantsev:So we talked to someone in New York that also did Medicaid planning. And I'd love to hear how the process if you can go into detail works in Florida, specifically around Medicaid planning.
Jason Neufeld:Yeah, and it's a really important question, because while Medicaid is a state and federal partnership, so what happens is on a federal level, Medicaid sets these parameters that the states can work within. And what that means is, in Florida, what we have to do to get someone eligible for Medicaid is going to be much different than someone in New York and most other states. And in fact, we have interesting strategies and planning tools that aren't available in New York, and vice versa. So So essentially, the idea is, we take certain assets that are countable, right in Florida, you can't have more than $2,000 to your name. So you know, a lot of people are going, you know, I'm not, you know, I'm not a Rockefeller, but I certainly have more than $2,000. Right middle class. Yeah, exactly. And that's where I tell people I go, you know, if you're indigent, you're already qualified for these programs. If you're ultra wealthy, you privately pay, it's everyone in the middle who kind of gets the short end of it. So so what we're doing really is we're taking assets that are above the $2,000 that are accountable, and we're converting them into assets that are not countable. So our clients can lead a higher quality of life, make it more so they have more to draw upon while they're alive and then make it more likely that they'll have something to pass on to their heirs. And that's essentially what we're doing.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Do you use like a combination of living trusts or some type of okay, yes, absolutely.
Jason Neufeld:Absolutely. So there's more than you know, I tell people there's more than one way to skin the cat and everything we do has pros and cons. I don't have people go let's just what's the what's the trust, I can put everything into and then you know, without any drawbacks, and that will let me qualify for Medicaid and let me keep everything I don't have that available. I don't think anybody does. And if they do, you know, I, I'm certainly open to learning more about it. But But where there's a combination of strategies that really depend on the individual, right, there's not a cookie cutter solution to any to everyone's problems. It's, let's talk about your goals. Let's talk about how your financial accounts are situated, right 401 k's are treated differently than on untaxed, non tax qualified brokerage accounts. So when treating the assets differently in there, we're coming up with a combination of strategies to minimize those drawbacks.
Kosta Yepifantsev:And I don't want to get too far in the weeds. But I'm curious, does Florida have a look back period as well, as Yeah,
Jason Neufeld:and I love that you asked that because yes, Florida does we have a five year look back period. But that doesn't mean what people think, right? the look back period, the five year look back period is the idea behind it is Medicaid does not want applicant giving away assets within five years of applying for Medicaid. And if you do, then they're going to penalize you for that, right. But most of my clients don't have five years to plan. If they do, that's great. So a small fraction do have five years to plan and we have kind of a different suite of solutions for those people who have who have the wherewithal to plan in advance. But most of my clients, 90% of them want Medicaid tomorrow, or the very near future, they don't have five years. So my strategies are legally and ethically getting money out of my client's name in a way that is not considered to be a gift. And therefore it doesn't trigger that five year look back period.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Interesting. Very interesting. So I want to touch on one last thing before we move on. And we talked about it briefly before we started the show. Can you talk a little bit about how elder abuse falls into the category of Elder Law? Yep,
Jason Neufeld:it's another cat. It's another, you know, branch on the on the elder law tree that some attorneys have their entire practice focused on elder abuse type cases. So where our clients are going to find traction, is in a few different scenarios. One of them is if their financial advisor or an insurance agent has sold them something that was really inappropriate for someone of their age, or means there is recourse against these large institutions. Where you know, you know, if someone's been financially abused, we can take the case, typically on a contingency fee, meaning the client doesn't come out of pocket to pay us for it, we can go after the institution, because we know that if we think it's a good case, we can get the money that the other where the other way people can find good representation is if they were injured due to the result of a facility's negligence, right. And they're in a nursing home or an assisted living facility and they were not attended to and we you commonly see bedsores pressure ulcers, and sometimes their fault, they're falling because they're not they're supposed to be attended to and sometimes they're not, then you can, you can go after those facilities as well. Where people are often disappointed, I'm sorry to say is, you know, this, the example I gave you before is they go, sometimes they call me up and they go, uncle Vinny stole money, he had power of attorney and he stole money from me, and I want to sue him. So where we can help is we can certainly change the power of attorney so uncle Vinny can't do any more damage. But it's harder to find an attorney willing to sue uncle Vinny because he probably doesn't have the money anymore, right? You can't get blood from a stone. So I mean, there are there are certainly cases where that's not the case. But by and large, suing individuals is very difficult to do. So what we are recommending to our clients is a few things. The first is you of course call the police, right, because the police can go after the criminally charged them. And there's almost every state has a statute that says if you're charged of stealing, you can get usually more than what was stolen, returned to you by order of the criminal judge. And then there's also most states have what's called a long term care ombudsman, which is a free government advocacy service that can help investigate these things as well. So I'm often referring to those resources as well.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Nice. So we talked about all the different parts of Elder Law and your opinion, will most people need an elder law attorney at some point in their life.
Jason Neufeld:Yeah. And and the sooner the better. You know, I'd say people who are in there, I'd say 55 and older ought to consider meeting with an elder law attorney even just for general estate planning purposes. Let me give you an example. Something as simple as a power of attorney. A lot of people think those are template documents that you can download off the Internet for free, and you'll be fine. And what happens is often, often what the case is these documents you find online for free, they're fine documents, I mean, I've seen plenty online that are perfectly fine. But for a limited purpose, right, so it's good for things like going to the bank, it may even be good for things like dealing with your real estate. But they're often where they often fail, is where you need more advanced planning, right. So for example, creating special needs trust, I see these form documents fail all the time, doing things that benefits the agent, or the agent is the one you empowered to make decisions on your behalf. And in Florida, at least, you can't say, I give my agent the ability to do everything for me, so help me God. And you know, you can't, you can't be that reward, you'd have to be very, very specific. And if it's not specific enough, and if certain things aren't initial properly, they just can't do it. So we have people who come to me very confident they go, you know, I'm here to help out my my mother or my father who needs help with long term care, and they have, you know, $200,000 worth of assets that we'd like to we'd like to protect. And unfortunately, they've lost their mind, right, they've lost their capacity to make decisions for themselves, which is why you get a power of attorney in the first place. And they send me this photo, this one page form or a two page form that I know, they download, I got like, you know, the same three forms I see circulated over and over again. And I have to be the bearer of bad news and say, Listen, this is fine for going to the bank. But we have more advanced complex things we need to do that this document just isn't good enough. And so we have to go to court now it's called guardianship or sometimes in other states called a conservatorship where you get a judge to say, hey, now this person can make decisions for the incapacitated individual. But that costs a lot more money than just getting a good well drafted power of attorney, by someone who's thinking about these long term care type issues. I see the problem with other types of attorneys as well, where again, it's a perfectly fine document for maybe your needs, and my needs, right are kind of our day to day living. But as we're talking about long term care related issues, these documents that are provided by non elder law attorneys or inexperienced estate planning attorneys may not be good enough to do the trick. So that's why a very long winded answer, but Elder Law is more important than you then you think even when you don't need specifically Long Term Care Service, it's good to start thinking about these these kinds of issues.
Kosta Yepifantsev:How long did it take you to really sort of not just find your niche, but also really understand the complexity of Elder Law, the Medicaid system? And I mean, literally, in the last 20 to 25 years, the system's changed, like five times, not more. Yeah.
Jason Neufeld:Yeah, I mean, I've been very involved with the elder law bar for quite a while now. So you mentioned that I'm on the board of directors of the Academy of Florida elder law attorneys. So we go to the conferences, and I actually teach at these conferences as well. But when I go there, I'm also learning so I'm both a teacher and a student, where, you know, there's updates in the law firm in some very specific, nuanced areas that other attorneys specialize in. And I learned from from listening to them. So how long did it take me? You know, I eat they call it the practice of law for a reason, right? We never truly master we're always trying to get better and better. So I make education a priority for myself and my staff and the attorneys who work with me, I want us to be on the forefront of all of this. I would say if I had to guess, a good, a good four to five years to really feel like I had a true control over this, you know, there's always a learning curve. And there's when I remember when I first started out probably 10 years ago, nine years ago, something like that, doing elder law. The first few cases you co counsel with another more experienced attorney. And that's kind of how you learn these things. But fortunately, I feel pretty confident I wrote I've written my own book on the subject. Again, I teach other attorneys this stuff. So feel pretty good about my knowledge base at this point.
Kosta Yepifantsev:I like that. So aside from power of attorneys, what do you think is the greatest misconception that people have about elder law, but also estate planning?
Jason Neufeld:Yeah, yeah. So Elder Law. I would say that five year look back period is a big one that we talked about. Some people come into this thinking to themselves, I can't do anything because I don't have five years to plan and I have really sad stories. One that I talk about a lot and must have been brought four years ago now where there were two sisters, one of them had capacity and was taking care of her unwell sister, and she called me up and said, You know I would have called you sooner. But I know there's a five year look back period. So I sold my sister's house, and we're down to her last $5,000. And so now what can we do? And I said, I'm so sorry that you thought that I wish you came to me sooner because we didn't have to sell the house, we had ways of protecting the house. You didn't have to burn through all of your sister's cash, but they think five years I can't do anything within five years. Which is simply not the case. Another Yeah, sorry. No, no,
Kosta Yepifantsev:go ahead. Keep going. Please.
Jason Neufeld:I just say another another big misconception is people say, Are you they don't like they feel like we're hiding something from the government. Right? I started out with a quarter million dollars, you know, the beginning of this month, and then I ended up with $2,000, after we've done all of our planning and situated the money, where, where what's in the clients best interest. And then we're applying saying our client only has $2,000. Let's give us these benefits and people that sits that sits on easy for some people where they say, you know, I don't want to hide things. And I, and I am very quick to tell people I go, I really enjoy practicing law. And I would never do anything to jeopardize the license. I'm not hiding anything from the government. In fact, I'm disclosing it all, I'm disclosing all the income sources, I'm disclosing all of the assets. And I'm telling the government exactly what we did, and why under state and federal laws, they still have to give my client access to benefits. I liken it to, you know, if you had $20 million, you would go to a tax attorney and say, How can I legally and ethically pay as little in taxes as possible as possible? And they would, you know, run you through that process. I'm doing the same thing for middle class folks.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Yeah. And I think you just nailed it right there. At the very end. It's impossible, it's incomprehensible for us to think that there can't be some form of relief for people that are middle class, to be able to have something like long term care, that is an inevitability, and is extremely expensive. Because if this was not here, then literally people would be poor at the end of their life. But more importantly, they wouldn't have any type of inheritance or any type of money to or assets to pass on to their kids and their loved ones. You can't build any generational wealth.
Jason Neufeld:You're 100% Correct. And I'll tell you Costa, you hit the nail on the head because too many people I say my my biggest challenge is educating Floridians that what I do exists. I've been in rooms full of attorneys, and they didn't know that what I did exist it so there's this like, it's like the best kept secret. And I don't exactly know why would try and make it my mission, come on shows like this and go speak in front of groups, because I want to educate people that there is something to do, you don't have to wait and just spend everything and you lose all you've worked your whole life for there's ways to protect it for yourself. First and foremost, it's for my client, right? I want them to have the highest quality of life possible. And then a second priority, of course, is passing it on to the next generation. Yeah,
Kosta Yepifantsev:I agree. And you would think that the federal government or the state governments would do some type of PSA, you know, but maybe one day, we'll see something like that, you know, just something as simple as saying Medicare does not pay for long term care would move mountains, you know, and
Jason Neufeld:you're right. You're absolutely right. And we get that all the time, you know, I have the best Medicare support money can buy and I go, that gets you 100 days in a skilled nursing facility. And that's not paying for ALS care. And maybe it pays for a little bit of home health care for a very limited period of time, but but not very much. Not very much it runs out very quickly.
Kosta Yepifantsev:So in your practice, what are some of the most common scenarios clients find themselves in? And when I'm what I mean by that is, like, what type of disabilities are they working through? You know, and I'm curious kind of to know, like, what their dynamics are versus or regarding their family members? Like, for example, do you feel like they this is usually their kids that are coming to you? Or are they themselves coming to you, a spouse, things like that?
Jason Neufeld:Yeah, it's a really good question. And I think I should point out, elder law attorneys are not just for the elderly. So we represent people of all ages, if they're over the age of 18, to get a different Medicaid program if you're if you're under the age of 18. But if you're over the age of 18, and have a disability that requires long term care, we help those people out as well. So for example, recently, I represented a married couple, the husband had early onset Parkinson's, he was young 50s and yet came down with Parkinson's and he gets a listen. It's getting to the point where I'm having trouble taking care of my Self, and it's kind of a burden on my wife to take, she can't, it's hard for her to lift me, it's hard for her to feed me, it's hard, you know, things like that. And we were able to get him on to what's called a Medicaid waiver program in Florida to get home health care to help out him and his wife. And he'll have that for the rest of his life. And if it needs to be in a facility, it will follow him into the facility and so, so you don't have to be elderly, necessarily. So it's a good way to more directly answer your question, I would say most often, by the vast majority of our clients are going to be in their 70s 80s 90s, something like that. And we're either most of the time we're dealing with their spouse who is well and is caring for their significant other, or we're dealing with their adult children with the power of attorney, and by the way, I'm looking at those adult children, I'm saying, Listen, you need long term care insurance, because I don't know what Medicaid is going to be like, and 20 or 30 years from now, I know what it is now. And so it's a really nice service now, but nothing beats cash. And if you can get long term care insurance while you're young and healthy, that's going to be the best, right? That's gonna that's better than anything.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Absolutely. And but the smoking gun is do they listen to you?
Jason Neufeld:I'll tell you, we have a I just recently, we started an insurance agency, as well as called elder needs insurance can complement elder needs law and I my partner in that he's not an attorney, but he's in the, you know, he helps people find good medicare supplement or Medicare Advantage plans. And he also does a lot with life insurance on long term care insurance. And I listen, I say, don't meet with my guy, right? I don't care. Just get it done by anyone. If you have relationship with someone else go get it done with them. Getting Long Term Care Insurance is a it can be expensive, but probably not as bad as you think, especially if you bundle it in with a life insurance policy. But explore it. And you're right. I think your instinct is most of them say No, I'm just here to talk about Mom and Dad, I'm thinking about my son later on. And they and they don't do it. And you know, we try to educate as best we can. But we can't force them to do anything.
Kosta Yepifantsev:I was talking to a long term care insurance agent out of I think it was in North Carolina. And she was explaining how long term care insurance has to be part of every single person's estate planning. So when you do a will and trust or when you're planning for retirement, that needs to be a major focal point, because yes, one of the things that people don't know is that you have a 70% chance of needing long term care after you turn 65, before end of life. And so it is an inevitability. And I think the faster people realize that the better.
Jason Neufeld:Yeah, and it's becoming harder and harder to find those policies. You know, my job, my parents have this amazing long term care policy that is kind of unlimited coverage that they've been paying into since the 90s. And I take your time I go, I don't care what you do, but you continue paying for that policy, you can't get that anymore, you can't get that anymore. So So now, for example, what's popular because it's a lot more affordable, is you buy your life insurance with what's called a long term care rider. And as you get older, it allows you to access your death benefit before you pass away, I see to pay for long term care needs. And then I like that because no matter what someone's going to benefit from the policy, right, if you're alive and need long term care, you get now you have this, this pot of money to draw from. And if you pass away, and you don't need long term care before the money runs out, then your your significant other your children can benefit from the life insurance. So no matter what it's good for, whatever your needs, whatever it might come in your world, it's a helpful policy to have.
Kosta Yepifantsev:And we're about to get into estate planning and probate and things like that. But I wanted to also say that when if you have a long term care insurance policy, you can skip the Medicaid part like the cumbersome part of having to rely on Medicaid and then also, and I don't want to like completely answer the next question with the statement. But I think it's important in case I forget it. When you have Medicaid, usually, at least in Tennessee, I'm not sure if it's in Florida, but I'm pretty sure Florida works the same way. You lose some of the control of being able to dictate how your care is provided, like they have obviously, this choice that they allow you to have, you can pick your agency and things like that, but a lot of times those agencies have to be Medicaid providers so that they go through the licensure process and the contracting process. And the facilities have to be Medicaid facilities. Well, here's the thing. A lot of assisted living facilities don't take Medicaid. They you have to pay for it out of pocket and sometimes to access those assisted living facilities or there's those independent retirement communities. You have to pay for them out of pocket and right those types of dynamics in my opinion, mirror a lot more of kind of the age And in place model, but with a lot more supports.
Jason Neufeld:Yeah, in Florida, the way it works is every single nursing home in the state must accept Medicaid if they accept Medicare, which 99.9% of them. That's really good because the Cadillac of people think of, I'm gonna be in a Medicaid nursing home, and it's gonna be this dump. Well, well, hopefully, you're not going to one of those facilities, but the Cadillac of nursing homes will accept Medicaid that's really good. assisted living facilities, you're absolutely correct. They have the choice whether they want to accept Medicaid or not. In Florida, there are plenty of very nice facilities that do because from their perspective, it's just money in Florida, but Medicaid won't pay the full bill Medicaid puts somewhere between, depending on where you are in the state between 13 116 $100 toward that bill. So those facilities on the low end are$2,500 a month, which might be fine, but on the high end, more like at $6,500 a month. So even with Medicaid might not be enough to cover the assisted living facility. Another really important reason why we want to protect those assets, and then from homecare, you're absolutely right. I mean, you pick the you pick an agency that contracts with Medicaid and you know, if you don't like them, you can fire them, but you're limited to who the Medicaid organization has contracted with.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Absolutely. So let me ask you, at what age should someone consult an elder law attorney to start planning for things like Medicaid, probate and estate planning?
Jason Neufeld:Yeah, estate planning. So I think if you are, if you own real it might my barometer or rule of thumb is if you own property, or if you're married with a child, you need to you need to do some estate planning. And we do a ton of, you know, generic estate planning as well. It's not necessary when you're young. We're not necessarily talking about Medicaid planning, but we're doing things like the power of attorney God forbid you get into a car accident and you become disabled, even though you're young, you need long term care. We have the power of attorney that your your loved one, whoever you designate can go through the machinations to get you eligible for Medicaid should that be needed. But generally speaking, that's not people's big concern. Their big concern is avoiding probate, making sure that they've chosen who was going to be the guardian of their child should one or both parents pass away. Who can make health care decisions for that child, if you're temporarily the parents are temporarily incapacitated. So that's their primary focus. And so we're doing a lot of planning surrounding a revocable trust. Sometimes it's called a living trust, revocable living trust all kinds of terms that mean the exact same thing. And so we're doing that, because a assets in a trust don't have to go to court, they don't have to go to the probate court process. And it's easy to turn the reins over to your assets for whoever it is you trust to do what's right for you or your children. So there's no, you know, most of my clients who come to me for generic estate planning are going to be in their 30s 40s 50s. And then once they start getting into their late 50s, or 60s, they we start to think about Medicaid planning. For example, My people who know they have a family history of Parkinson's or Alzheimer's, or a history of stroke, and you know, things like that they have these kind of genetic predisposition to things happening that will require long term care, then we talk about, if it's not needed immediately or not needed within five years, we're talking about an irrevocable trust, where we're kind of getting money out of their name in advance of needing care, because essentially, after five years, money in this irrevocable trust is invisible as far as Medicaid is concerned. So those are probably my, my healthy 70 probably 70 to 80 is probably the sweet spot. My people were kind of a healthy 70 Or a healthy 80 Those are the people who are going to be most interested or a little bit younger, if they know they're predisposed to these sorts of ailments that will require long term care.
Kosta Yepifantsev:So obviously you're in Florida and if I ever end up living in Florida, I definitely know who to call for estate planning. But like for you know, with me being in Tennessee now and a lot of the audience is also most likely from out of state and don't Florida. What tips can you give us for finding a qualified and knowledgeable elder law attorney in our area?
Jason Neufeld:Yeah, I think for sure. You want to go to naila.org That's NAEL a.org, which stands for the National Academy of Elder Law attorneys. Any elder law attorney who's worth their salt is going to be a man member of that organization that's that's the kind of the preeminent Elder Law organization in the country. And if you go to that website very prominently featured as a find a lawyer, you can enter in your zip code. And it'll give you a list of attorneys who are near you, when you can interview, you know, as many as you want, you find someone who you click with, you know, and, again, elder law attorneys focus on different things. So if it's Medicaid, you want to find someone who has demonstrated some knowledge and a deep commitment to Medicaid planning. And then some people are just more interested in estate planning. And that's okay, too. And there are other attorneys who are focused more on the estate planning side of things.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Very good. So before we finish, I have one more very important question. If you could share one unavoidable truth when it comes to long term care, planning and securing your estate, what would it be?
Jason Neufeld:It's, you're not invincible. It is, these things can happen. It's not sometimes Long Term Care happens in a predictable manner, right? You've slipped we're all gonna slow down as we get older. We are, you know, ultimately, like you said, 70% of us are going to need long term care, don't think you're special, I'm not special, you're not special, your viewers aren't special, we all age, we all are going to need help at some point in time. So sticking your head in the sand is not a good way to go without doing anything. And especially that applies doubly to long term care planning. So having a plan in advance is only going to be to your benefit. Don't do your estate planning yourself. It is not a DIY project, don't go to the websites that make you pay, you know, 20 bucks to get a full suite of documents, you're going to get what you pay for, meet with a quote at the very least someone who specializes in estate planning. And if you're concerned about long term care, you're going to want to be with an elder law attorney, even if you don't consider yourself elderly. I promise we'll deal with lots of people who are who are an elderly, even as an elder law attorney. So I think that is the unavoidable truth is plan in advance. Don't think it's not going to happen to you. Because ultimately, it happens to many people who no one wants to be a burden on their children, of course, and there's a lot of that going on, unfortunately, because people aren't choosing to plan in advance.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Do you think that we're starting to turn the tide in the right direction?
Jason Neufeld:I hope so. I mean, I think I'm seeing you know, if it's if if the busyness of our office is any indication, we're seeing more people inquire more people, you know, you know, again, I try to the reason why I wrote the book that I give out, you know, anyone who wants my I have these booklets that I put together and I just hand them out like candy. I want everyone to just consume this knowledge. And it's all so I'm hoping that it's all practical information. I mean, like you I have a YouTube channel where I answer people's very specific questions. And by the way, I know I'm educating other elder law attorneys as well, I'm okay with that I want people to be I want to disseminate the good knowledge, right. And if you if it's not with me, if you want to go to you know, your sister in law, who's an elder law attorney, please do it. Just seek help from somebody, I don't care if it's me just get help from somebody so that you're not going at this alone.
Kosta Yepifantsev:It's just so pervasive. And if you don't have you know, the knowledge and the support, you're literally just feel like you've complete fish out of water, and there's no kind of light at the end of the tunnel. What is the book and where can people buy it?
Jason Neufeld:I just so happen to have a copyright. How to get Medicaid to pay for some or all of your long term care expenses without having to wait five years without having to sell your house without having to go broke first a Florida Medicaid Medicaid lawyers guide for non lawyers, I wrote it for the layman. It's not a treaty. So it's not complicated. It's only about 100 pages long, and it's available on amazon.com.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Fantastic. So we always like to end the show with a call to action. That what's your best advice for someone entering the long term care industry as a patient, caregiver, or as an industry professional?
Jason Neufeld:It is you don't have to do it. Especially if you're a caregiver or a patient or someone needs the care. You don't have to go at it alone. There are support groups all over the place, and you're gonna get a lot of great information. I make it a point to speak at different caregiver support groups multiple times a year, because I know, you know, I kind of joke but not really they're the true heroes, right? I mean, these are people who are it's their, you know, their parents or their grandparents or their brother or sister or their child has no one else that they can count on. And this person has it and oftentimes they're burnt out because they suffer in silence. And I want people to know they don't have to do that. They really don't have to do that. If you are a person Rational getting involved in the business, there are different. Go Go help the support groups out, donate your time, donate your energy. And of course, there are loads of senior oriented networking groups that you know, it's it's a bunch of people from different a variety of different disciplines, not most of them aren't legal or, or financial. They're kind of the full gamut, the full spectrum of of care that's provided for senior citizens and go and meet your peers because you're going to be able to help each other out and help your community be a better, safer, nicer place for the elderly or the disabled.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Jason, this was an absolute pleasure, thank you for coming on and sharing all your wisdom. And I think that we got a lot of great information here. That's going to help a lot of people.
Jason Neufeld:Kosta, I love being here. Really. Thank you for having me.
Caroline Moore:Thank you for joining us on this episode of Now or Never Long Term Care Strategy with Kosta Yepifantsev. If you enjoyed listening and you wanna hear more make sure you subscribe on Apple podcast Spotify or wherever you find your Podcasts, leave us a review or better yet share this episode with a friend. Now or Never Long-Term Care Strategy is a Kosta Yepifantsev production. Today’s episode was written and produced by Morgan Franklin. Want to find out more about Kosta? Visit us at kostayepifantsev.com