There’s usually a moment when you realize things have shifted.
Maybe it’s a phone call where something seemed off. Maybe one sibling noticed it before the others did, or your parent is still doing fine, most of the time, but there are some signs that “normal” isn’t the same as it was.
Whatever brought you here, you’re not alone. There’s a lot you can do, especially if you start before a crisis forces your hand.
Why This Conversation Keeps Getting Delayed
Let’s be honest: nobody wants to talk about a loved one’s aging, health declining, or the need to be able to make decisions if your mom or dad can’t.
It’s uncomfortable. It’s challenging to plan for something you don’t want to happen. For many parents, there’s a deep fear that signing legal documents means handing over control to their kids.
That fear is real and worth respecting. But it’s also worth understanding what actually happens when there’s no plan in place.
The Cost of Waiting – And It’s Not Just Money
Here’s a straightforward way to think about it: the decisions families delay today tend to show up later as bigger costs, harder choices, and less control.
It is essential to have key decision-making documents put in place while a person still has capacity to sign them. These documents put the right person in charge of health and financial decisions. These are essential to allow someone to efficiently maintain a person’s care and finances if they start to need help. During the time the person maintains capacity: the authority granted by the decision-making documents does not replace or remove that person’s independent authority.
What happens if the planning is not in place and the person cannot act for him or herself?
If a parent is unable to make decisions for his/herself without proper documents, writing, the family may need to go through a court process called Guardianship to establish who’s in charge. That process can cost $3,000 or more and may take months. This is true even when everyone in the family agrees.
“I’m Not Signing Anything”
Some older people, especially those who have “heard” stories from friends or from somebody who knows somebody at church, are skeptical of signing legal documents.
While some of those stories are real – there are bad actors in the world – most are misconceptions or amped imaginations.
In truth: good planning protects against those situations.
The documents that give a trusted person authority to act for health and financial decisions allow the person to choose who represents them with medical decisions and financial help.
Unfortunately, the fear of someone doing something wrong keeps older people from doing anything at all. The result is more stress, less ability to provide support, and less control by the person to clearly choose who will be in control when an urgent need arises.
What Actually Needs to Be in Place
Most people believe they need a Will and that is all. However, for authority to assist with decision-making when a parent’s health declines or to help with bill paying and banking, the necessary documents include:
- Appointment of a Healthcare Representative/HIPAA Authorization: names who can make medical decisions if a person can’t speak for his/herself. It also provides authority to talk to medical people to get information.
- General Durable Power of Attorney: names who can manage finances and property.
- Living Will / Advance Directive: spells out your parent’s wishes about end-of-life decisions/preferences.
- Funeral and Burial Instructions: removes a painful guessing game at an already hard time.
None of this takes any authority or power away from the person signing these documents. They are important in the world today to allow someone to help if and when the time comes.
If you want to understand exactly what goes into a complete Power Of Attorney
Without them, a committee of family members (siblings, spouses, adult children) may all have equal say, and doctors won’t risk making a call without court-appointed guidance. That’s how an already hard situation gets harder.
The Question About the House
One of the most common questions families ask is some version of: “Can the nursing home or the government take my parents’ home?”
Short answer: not exactly. But it is complicated.
Here’s the plain-English version.
If a parent moves into a nursing home, there is a need to privately pay for service. Eventually, a person may apply for Medicaid through the State. However, the person or family is responsible for the expense, at the private pay rate, until the Medicaid application is approved.
Generally, Medicaid pays most of the nursing home care expenses incurred by people in Indiana. However, Medicaid is a broken, broke, underfunded, overpopulated program, which is more than a billion ($1,000,000.00) dollars in the whole. The State’s response to the shortfall is not to increase funding to cover, but to cut program availability and create waitlists for programs. Depending on the program being sought, the waitlist may be a year, eighteen months, or even longer.
The home and other assets become a necessary source of covering the private pay period while on the waitlist.
There are ways to mitigate how much needs to be spent in private pay, but the family still needs some funds available to cover the private pay window.
It is important to understand that facilities’ private-pay rates are higher than what Medicaid pays. They are not as motivated to convert someone to a Medicaid rate. The facility want the family to pay the private rate using at available assets, including the home, for as long as possible before applying for Medicaid.
WHAT ESTATE RECOVERY ACTUALLY MEANS
Even if a home can be “protected” from paying nursing home expenses during the person’s life, Estate Recovery provides Medicaid with the opportunity to recover the money it paid out. It does this by filing a claim in the probate estate after the person passes.
The important point is this: the timing of planning matters enormously here. Options exist to protect a home or limit what has to be spent. But some of those options have to be put in place well before a nursing home admission, not after.
Where to Start
If any of this feels familiar, whether you’re already in the middle of it or you can see it coming, here’s what we’d suggest:
- Have the conversation. Even a rough, incomplete version of it. What does your parent want? Who do they trust? What are they worried about?
- Get the basic documents in place. Powers of Attorney and advance directives are the foundation. Everything else builds from there.
- If long-term care is on the horizon, talk to someone sooner rather than later. Planning options exist, but some of them have timing requirements. The earlier you understand what’s available, the more control you have.
If you’d like to talk through what applies to your specific situation, we’re happy to have that conversation. At CCSK Law, we work to make things clear, build trust through honest guidance, and help you think ahead, not just react. No pressure, no obligation. Just a chance to understand where you stand and what your options are.
CCSK Law helps Indiana families navigate estate planning, elder law, and Medicaid-related decisions. Our attorneys are based in Northwest Indiana and serve clients throughout Indiana.