My mother was in a nursing home- She had to spend down her assets(a fairly small savings account),and then apply for Medicaid. They took her pension and social security every month and left her with $60.00 per month spending money.
We bought all of her clothing(which disappeared constantly) but she got the care she needed.
I put my property in a trust some years ago. In MA the look-back-period is five years so I’m all set there.
Seeing an attorney is the best bet.
.
There was a lady in a good Catholic home here I used to visit. People stole her stuff. She just shrugged it off. The ambulatory patients stole stuff, too. Not all, of course. There just was no protection. I don't know how to prevent that. Or being abused. Need some kind of dependable advocate since I can't depend on anyone in my family. It's not that they are all irresponsible; they are too distracted to care about any minutiae in my affairs. And my daughters may or may not care if I get good care. I'm afraid they would cause trouble; I know they probably would. Good thing I've had it figured out for awhile.
You did the smart thing. Every state is different.
I need to see an attorney to finish my trust. The last atty got mad at me. I wanted a trust with conditions. He got impatient and started getting kids' and grandkids' names, I didn't want what he put down. I have a .pdf copy of the almost-finished trust I paid $2500K for. If he would finish it if I could get there, I think he would get too impatient with me. He likes to be totally in charge. It's my trust. 34 pages. All boilerplate stuff I don't want to read except for a few pages naming people and conditions.
That lawyer on the radio, he's getting worse with the insults and he says outrageous things to callers. He's really kidding, but I don't know how some would take it. Can't think of his name. He mentioned his trust and his daughter. Tattoos, no money. Things like that. I thought that's the way I want my trust set up. I don't think I was being unreasonable about that.
It's too hard for me to get the 50 miles to sign it which I won't because it's not what I want. He was going to send his son the 50 mi to me for me to sign, and I didn't want to pay the extra.
I emailed him about a year ago, and never heard back. So I will have to see if another attorney will be willing to finish it.
There's an elder law atty here locally, I'm bitter about him. But I'm not going to do anything about it. Let it go.