Preservation of Needs-Based Benefits & Other Considerations
Different methods for protecting needs-based benefit preservation must be explored for any disabled injury victim who is currently eligible.
Category: SNTs
ABLE Accounts: Helping Clients on Public Benefits Make the Most of their Recovery
October 8, 2020 ABLE accounts, named for the Achieving a Better Life Experience Act, have been around since 2014 but remain underutilized across the country despite offering a way for people with disabilities and public benefits to save money without jeopardizing their public benefits eligibility. [1] The reasons why are likely a combination of the […]
Public Benefits Preservation: What Your Client Doesn’t Know will Hurt Them, and You!
April 9, 2020 By: Evelynn Passino One of the many practice points rarely taught in law school: your client may lose public benefits as a result of a recovery, and you have a duty, as their attorney, to discuss benefit preservation with them. That does not mean you have a duty to actually preserve their […]
The Special Needs Trust: 3 Types
The Special Needs Trust (SNT) is designed to protect individuals with disabilities who are receiving money through a trust. The SNT is an effective tool because it places funds and other relevant assets in the control of a trustee to make it easier for an individual with special needs to save money while avoiding any […]
Protecting Supplemental Security Income and Medicaid Eligibility for Injury Victims: Special Needs Trusts
Introduction The receipt of personal injury proceeds by someone who is disabled can cause ineligibility for means based tested government benefit programs. Medicaid[1] and SSI[2] are two such programs. However, there are planning devices that can be utilized to preserve eligibility for those who have become disabled due to injury. A special needs trust can […]
What Sets SSNPT Apart?
Clients who receive needs based benefits such as Medicaid and SSI require special planning to protect eligibility for those public benefits. More and more frequently, a pooled special needs trust is being utilized to preserve eligibility given the ease with which one can be set up and the relatively low cost.
Distributions from Special Needs Trusts: In Kind Distributions, Credit Cards, Gift Cards, or Debit Cards
You are the trustee of a special needs trust. Your beneficiary (Beth) lives in public housing, receives SSI (Supplemental Security Income) and MA (Medical Assistance), and has just asked you for a $200 gift card to Target so that she can buy headphones, clothes, toiletries, and some food.
Special Needs Trusts – The Differences
Special Needs Trusts – The Differences By: Jason D. Lazarus, J.D., LL.M., MSCC, CSSC A special needs trust is a trust that can be created pursuant to Federal law whose corpus or any assets held in the trust do not count as resources for purposes of qualifying for Medicaid or SSI. Thus a personal injury […]