Pooled Special Needs Trust confusion

Not sure if this is the place to ask the question. I'm hoping it is:

My daughter's father is in a nursing home in Florida. He is currently on Medicaid. My daughter, who lives in Massachusetts, has MS and her father's lawyer created a Pooled Special Trust for her. He said that because she is disabled the money will be protected from Medicaid when her father dies (he's 94).

Today she received a cashier's check for $17,000. She called a local lawyer who told her that because it's such a small amount of money she can just deposit it in any account and it won't be counted against her disability benefits or her subsidized housing calculations.

My fear is that this lawyer simply did not want to deal with her because the amount was so small. I was under the impression that she had to set up some kind of trust on this end to protect the money and her benefits.

I told her not to cash the check yet. Does anyone know if she can simply use this money without fear of it being called for by Medicaid when her Dad dies, or fear of it affecting her current rent and disability payments.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Jane

Reply to
Jane
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That's good planning.

Why didn't she call her father's lawyer? He'll know better than a generalist who doesn't specialize in dealing with people on Medicaid.

It's really impossible to tell without knowing the Medicaid rules in MA. It's possible that money won't disqualify her, but you'd have to talk to someone there who knows the local rules.

Depending on where the money came from, it would be possible for her to set up a special needs trust for herself. Again, her father's lawyer is probably the best one to talk to.

Reply to
Stuart O. Bronstein

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