2017 Social Security, Medicare, Military Benefits & Medicaid COLA

Posted on November 14, 2016 by Hawkins Elder Law.

[See our Disclaimers page about relying on this website’s contents.] Recipients of Social Security retirement income, Social Security disability income, veterans’ pensions, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Medicaid, and other social insurance and public assistance benefits will experience cost-of-living adjustments in January 2017. The benefits and applicable deductions, such as Medicare premiums, will rise together with […]

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Have You Withdrawn Enough from Your IRA This Year?

Posted on by Hawkins Elder Law.

The retirement plan concept leads us to believe that we should contribute as much as possible to IRAs and other tax-deferred retirement plans, and avoid withdrawing more than the required minimum distributions. While this strategy will maximize retirement plan growth and the likelihood that it will provide income late in life, it also sets up […]

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Don’t Short-Circuit Your Estate Plan

Posted on October 4, 2016 by Hawkins Elder Law.

[See our Disclaimers page about relying on this website’s contents.] If a person has made a will, a power of attorney, an advance health care directive, or a trust, the person may think that those documents create a dependable estate plan. Unfortunately, many people do not realize that an estate plan includes every kind of […]

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Financial Protection When Your Spouse Needs Nursing Home Care – Part 2

Posted on September 4, 2016 by Hawkins Elder Law.

This article concludes a two-part series about how state and federal law can save a nursing home resident’s spouse from poverty and how an experienced elder law attorney can help the spouse increase the amount of assets protected from expensive long-term care. In our first article (Financial Protection When Your Spouse Needs Nursing Home Care […]

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Financial Protection When Your Spouse Needs Nursing Home Care – Part 1

Posted on by Hawkins Elder Law.

Nursing home bills usually turn a person’s world upside down when his or her spouse requires nursing home care (the average Indiana nursing home bed costs $7,167 per month in 2022). This article begins a two-part series about state and federal law can save a nursing home resident’s spouse from poverty, and how an experienced […]

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Plan for Nursing Home Care – Even If You Don’t Want to Go

Posted on August 29, 2016 by Hawkins Elder Law.

We often hear from married couples during estate planning conferences that they do not plan to go to a nursing home. Our half joking reply is that lines rarely form for people wanting to enter nursing homes unless they are visiting nursing home residents. Unfortunately, according to the Indiana Long-Term Care Partnership Program, “individuals living […]

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Can I Give Money to My Family?

Posted on August 4, 2016 by Hawkins Elder Law.

[See our Disclaimers page about relying on this website’s contents.] Clients and people that attend our estate planning presentations during our tours around Southern Indiana often ask whether they can give money to their family members. A common version of the question is, “Is it true that I can give $10,000 (or slightly larger value) […]

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What Are the Differences between Wills and Trusts?

Posted on July 24, 2016 by Hawkins Elder Law.

[See our Disclaimers page about relying on this website’s contents.] People ask us to explain the difference between wills and trusts from time to time when we are speaking to groups about advance health care directives and other estate planning topics. We have tried many ways to answer the question over the years, but we […]

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Does That Trust Need a Tune-Up?

Posted on April 22, 2016 by Hawkins Elder Law.

[See our Disclaimers page about relying on this website’s contents.] Revocable trust plans have been around for fifty years or more. Revocable trusts were quite the rage when we began practicing law in the early 1990s. Most people wanted the privacy advantage that revocable trusts held over last wills and testaments. Some people believed mistakenly […]

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Criminal Consequences of Deceptive Indiana Nursing Home Medicaid Applications

Posted on March 30, 2016 by Hawkins Elder Law.

[See our Disclaimers page about relying on this website’s contents.] Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, and other health crises send thousands of people to nursing homes each year. People often want to protect assets from expensive healthcare costs when they discover that the average annual cost of Indiana nursing home care exceeds $71,000. Legitimate asset protection strategies […]

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