Using Pooled Trusts to Avoid Nursing Homes

For many middle-class families who make too much to qualify for Medicaid programs but cannot afford private home care, keeping their elderly parents out of nursing homes is a challenge. One way for these people to receive home care through Medicaid without impoverishing themselves first is through the use of pooled trusts. The elderly individual can use the money to pay for basic monthly bills while Medicaid pays for home care. Some drawbacks to pooled trusts include:

• They involve a lot of paperwork.
• Money left over in the end is paid back to Medicaid or to the nonprofit organization running the trust.
• They aren’t widely available for people over age 65.

See Tara Siegel Bernard, What’s a Pooled Trust? A Way to Avoid the Nursing Home, N.Y. Times, Nov. 4, 2010.

Special thanks to Jim Hillhouse (WealthCounsel) for bringing this to my attention.