Upcoming Family to Family events in Houston

EASY ACCESS TO HEALTH
INFORMATION


Please join us as Health Sciences librarian, Beatriz Varman, demonstrates how to easily find reliable health information on the Internet. Internet access and hands-on assistance will be available, so feel free to bring your questions!

Dates: August 19, 2005
October 14, 2005
November 4, 2005
December 9, 2005


All of the trainings will be held from 10:00 a.m. – noon at the Family to Family Network office located at 13150 FM 529, Suite 106
Houston, TX 77041 (corner of FM 529 and N. Eldridge).

There is no charge for the trainings, but space is limited. To attend, RSVP at least 2 days prior to the training date at
713-466-6304. Thank you!


http://www.familytofamilynetwork.org/
http://resource.library.tmc.edu/family

Texas Laws for Wills and Intestacy

Click here for the Texas rules for both those with wills and those who die intestate.

Social Security Disability Insurance for Disabled Adult Children

You may be eligible to receive disability cash benefits on the record of your parent(s) if:

Ø You are 18 years of age or older, and
Ø You have a disability that began before age 22, and
Ø You have a parent who has worked and earned enough credits and that parent is retired, deceased or has a disability, and
Ø You are not working or working but earning less than $585 per month.

If your disabled person meets these eligibility requirements then they will begin receiving a cash benefit equal to 50% of your social security retirement benefit and 75% of that benefit after your death. This is subject to the family maximum, so it may be lower depending on the number of your eligible dependants.

Example:
Primary recipient = $ 2000 per month at 100%
Spousal recipient = 1000 per month at 50%
Disabled Adult Child = 1000 per month at 50% (not to exceed the family maximum of $3500. Their benefits are reduced to $750 until the death of a beneficiary.)

They also receive Medicare A & B. If they have been previously covered through SSI and Medicaid, then:
Ø There is no waiting period for the Medicare; and,
Ø Medicaid continues plus pays the Part B premiums and all deductibles and co pays for Medicare if their benefit is below $917 (for 2005).

For more information go to: www.ssa.gov

Review, Revise and Strenghten.

It is imperative to keep your comprehensive estate plan with special needs provisions updated, especially related to asset distributions. Many folks fail at this important task because of the mistaken belief that the legal documents need to be amended or rewritten. No one relishes additional legal fees.
In reality, the majority of distributions at death do not pass according to the will but are distributed by the beneficiary declarations for your life insurance, IRA’s, 401K’s and annuities. The result is that you can fine tune your plan by adjusting the distribution %’s for your intended beneficiaries.
To affect this type of update, your financial consultant or estate planner should be asked to reassess the financial profile for your special needs child on a regular basis to accommodate any variances that have, or may, occur. This will then alter the present value figure for your death plan. With this new figure, you can use the simple Change of Beneficiary form to increase funding to the required areas (i.e. the Special Needs Trust).
Surprisingly, many plans are under funded by over 100% and micro-economic faults are the cause. Many financial plans:

-Understate actual living expenses
-Use static interest assumptions,
-Ignore the internal costs of money management,
-Fail to account for taxes, and
-Disregard cost of living increases.

Since today’s disabled population will live to ages closer to normal mortality expectations, many trusts are established with cash flow projections of fifty years or more. What happens if an improperly funded trust terminates in 20 years while the beneficiary still has 30 years more to live? In a word, disaster!

Funding for your child's futute.

One common question that often comes to mind when beginning the difficult task of developing a life plan for a special needs child is “How much money do we need to provide for our child’s future?” The complete answer depends on too many factors to discuss here, however, two key elements are:

þ Mortality- how long might your child live based on their unique situation.

þ Morbidity- what extraordinary costs could they incur due to their physical or developmental impairment.

Many inexperienced planners only focus on mortality as the baseline for the financial assessment. Too often, they compound that error by ignoring the dynamic nature of cost of living increases which affect special needs specific expenses. Taken together, this can greatly undervalue the true funding requirements.
Morbidity deals with deviation. In this case, it asks, “What changes will take place in the care needs of my child as they progress down their mortality line?” Seen as a chart it would look like this:


The triangle formed by the deviation can ad a significant sum to the funding amount. Disregard it at your, and your child’s peril!

Health Insurance Premium Payment Plan

If someone in your household is on Medicaid and someone in your household is employed, you may qualify for the Health Insurance Premium Payment (HIPP) Program for Texas Medicaid recipients and their families.

What is HIPP?

The Health Insurance Premium Payment Program (HIPP) is a Medicaid program that pays for the cost of Medical Premiums. The Program reimburses clients or employers for private health insurance payments for Medicaid eligible persons when it is cost effective.

Why would I want HIPP?

HIPP will pay for your private health insurance program.
Members of your family who are not eligible for Medicaid may be covered under HIPP.
Health Insurance paid through HIPP may cover services that are not covered under Medicaid

How will the Premiums be paid?

Once your eligibility has been determined, the State Contractor, Texas Medicaid, and Healthcare Partnership (TMHP) will pay or continue to pay for private health insurance premiums as long as you or a member of the family is eligible for Medicaid and the private insurance has been determined to be cost effective.

How do I apply?
For more information, contact the HIPP program at 1-800-440-0493.

The "Widow's Transfer"

For many of the older generation, the issue of the long term care of their disabled child was seldom addressed in terms of dollars and cents. It was, and is, a matter of total commitment to do what is necessary on a daily basis. When those tasks exceeded the ability of the caregiver, many looked to private residential placements for accommodation. As part of this transition most communities performed some type of financial analysis to evaluate the sponsor’s ability to pay the expected costs. Many of these financial reviews, in hindsight, fell short in projecting both the inflation factors for care, the life span of the resident and the ability of sponsor to cover those dynamic costs over a lifetime, both theirs and the resident’s.
Today, many of parents are watching as their assets fall to levels that are worrisome and threaten both their lifestyle needs and that of their child’s. Their greatest fear then becomes “What if I have a catastrophic event and all of my money is used for my care? What will be left for my child?”
One possible solution may be a little known rule in Medicaid planning, which combined with special needs trust regulations, allows for instant asset protection. This law allows for a parent to transfer some or all of their assets to an existing special needs trust without incurring any personal transfer penalty. This would allow that parent to safeguard their remaining assets for their “resident” child while immediately qualifying themselves for Long Term Medicaid coverage. This is the Medicaid that pays for nursing home care.
To use this rule the trust had to be created by a parent or grandparent and be “a living trust”, able to accept current deposits.
One additional planning note; since individuals may lose their capacity to make rational decisions due to some form of dementia, it is imperative to have this subject well defined in a Durable Power of Attorney document to insure that it is fulfilled.
It is advised that an experienced Elder Care attorney be consulted on this and other life planning issues.