So both my parents have been living at home but my mom is not doing as well as she was and she needs to go into a nursing home, what do we do?
Paula K. Almgren, Esq.: Okay, so in Massachusetts, the rules are not designed to impoverish your parent who's able to stay home. So what would happen is your mom could move to the nursing home, I would talk to your parents first about spending down and certain things that are allowed. There's also many Medicaid exceptions, so I would see is there a way that we could protect the home or certain things like that. But I would move assets to the parent who's at home. The parent who needs a nursing home can only have $2,000 or less in their name and then your mom would be Medicaid eligible. And by the way, Medicaid is called Mass Health in Massachusetts but she would be eligible once your other parent who's at home, their assets were $130,000 or less roughly. And then, if they're over that amount there's a certain kind of annuity that the home spouse could purchase that turns countable assets into a non-countable income stream for the well spouse. There's so many options and there's so many ways to approach it, so it's not cut and dry but it's worth exploring all the options.
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