Estate Planning Insights

Analysis and practical guides on estate planning.

4 articles, checklists, and guides on estate planning law, written by the attorneys at MC Law. Every piece is general information, not legal advice — for a specific matter, contact the firm.

Estate PlanningElder Law

Elder Law Toolkit: Benefits, Housing, Capacity, and Elder Abuse Response

A working kit for elder law practice and for families managing it themselves. Section A compares the benefit programs side by side and maps which one pays for what. Section B holds worksheets: the transfer penalty calculation, the spousal impoverishment snapshot, and a care cost comparison. Section C is templates: power of attorney provisions that matter, a personal services caregiver agreement, a facility site visit script, an admission agreement addendum, a Medicare expedited appeal request, a Medicaid fair hearing request, a discharge appeal, an estate recovery hardship waiver request, an APS report, a power of attorney revocation, and an accounting demand. Section D collects the primary authorities.

Casey Scott McKayJuly 28, 202515 min read

Estate PlanningElder Law

Medicaid Long-Term Care Eligibility Checklist: A Practical Checklist

A working checklist for qualifying an applicant for long-term care Medicaid and protecting them once care begins. It runs the pre-application inventory, the capacity documents, the resource and income analysis with exempt assets listed, the five-year lookback review transaction by transaction, the spousal protections and the resource assessment, the complete verification package, filing and deadline management, the fair hearing, and estate recovery. Separate sections cover the Medicare skilled nursing appeal, what to strike from an admission agreement, and the response to suspected poor care or financial exploitation.

Casey Scott McKayJuly 14, 202510 min read

Estate PlanningElder Law

Planning and Paying for Long-Term Care: A Practical Guide

This guide walks a family through long-term care from the first worrying sign to the estate recovery notice. It covers the inventory to assemble before anything else, the capacity documents that must be signed while capacity exists, how to assess the level of care actually needed, how to compare home care, assisted living, memory care, and nursing facilities on cost and fit, how to evaluate a specific facility using public survey data and a site visit, how to appeal a Medicare skilled nursing termination, how to file a long term care insurance claim, how to prepare and file a Medicaid application and win a fair hearing, what to sign and refuse at admission, how to use care plan meetings and discharge appeals, and what happens after death.

Casey Scott McKayJune 30, 202527 min read

Estate PlanningElder Law

Elder Law and Long-Term Care: Medicaid, Nursing Homes, and Protecting an Aging Parent

Long-term care is the largest uninsured financial risk most American families face, and the rules that govern it are counterintuitive at every turn. Medicare does not pay for long-term custodial care. Medicaid does, but only after a strict income and asset test, a five-year lookback on transfers, and a promise that the state will seek repayment from the estate. This article explains the documents that must be signed while capacity still exists, what guardianship costs when they were not, how Medicaid eligibility and transfer penalties actually work, the spousal impoverishment protections that keep a healthy spouse from destitution, the federal rights every nursing home resident holds, what an admission agreement may and may not require, and how to recognize and respond to elder abuse and financial exploitation.

Casey Scott McKayJune 16, 202528 min read