Florida Medicaid Benefits are available to Nursing Home and Assisted Living Facility (ALF) residents who meet the financial and medical criteria for Florida Medicaid.  Many of the clients who contact our office have been led to believe that they must spend all of their assets below $2,000.00 (the “Medicaid Spend-Down”), before they can qualify for Medicaid. This is not true.   Fortunately, Florida has some of the most favorable asset protection laws in the United States.  Under Florida Law, there are a number of “non-countable” assets which are not included in a Medicaid Applicant’s $2,000.00 asset limit.  If a person’s estate is properly structured between countable and non-countable assets, he/she can qualify for Medicaid without any Medicaid “spend-down”.  For most clients, assets can be restructured within 30 days, and Medicaid benefits can be granted in that time period.

VA BENEFITS:

With the VA there is a little known special care Veterans pension called Aid and Attendance  (A&A), which is available to qualifying Veteran’s (and their surviving spouses). This is a special  monthly pension which is referred to as a non-service connected pension, because the Veteran  (or their surviving spouse) does not have to have a disability which is a result of  military service.  Rather, the Veteran will generally be deemed to be disabled by the simple  fact that they are 65 years of age or older.  This is a benefit which may be tremendously helpful  for residents of Assisted Living Facilities.  Often, the monthly income of an ALF resident is not  sufficient to pay for the entire monthly cost of the ALF.  This is where Veterans Aid &  Attendance comes into play.  The monthly expense of the ALF is treated as an “un-reimbursed  medical expense” and that monthly expense often is high enough to create pension eligibility  for many Veterans (or their surviving spouses) who are residents of an ALF (assuming they  meet the other financial criteria for benefits).

The following table shows the maximum 2009 VA Pension Rates: