TKWhite LTC Law is here to help.

The short answer to this question is that ALTCS is designed to cover LTC costs only for those people who have spent down to the extent that they can no longer afford to pay for their own care. The reality, though, is that only people who neglect to engage in any meaningful estate preservation planning tend to really spend everything down before they qualify. And, to be entirely clear on this point, even spending every last penny doesn’t qualify an applicant for benefits – He or she must still undergo the application process and prove that their funds are depleted, a multi-month process, during which time bills will still be coming in and care homes will expect them to be timely paid. So how much does somebody have to spend before they qualify for ALTCS? Like most answers to legal questions, the answer here is that it depends. Those who start planning earlier tend to save more than those who wait until they have paid for months or even years of care before beginning the planning process. The sooner you begin planning, the more you are likely to save, so proactivity really pays in this situation. In some cases, pre-planning can help even healthy people save money. Where pre-planning is not practical, though, the time to begin planning is as soon as the need for long-term care becomes foreseeable. You can’t qualify until you satisfy the medical requirement, so filing an application before a medical need arises can be a fool’s errand. Instead, healthy people who want to explore long-term care planning in advance can speak to TKWhite LTC Law about pre-planning.