At 89 years old, my Dad became ill and had to be hospitalized. When he moved to a rehabilitation unit housed in a long-term care facility, his rehab was funded by Medicare. At the time, I was told that my Dad needed 24-hour skilled nursing care and that he was a two person assist. A few months later, Medicare stopped paying for rehab because my Dad had stopped making progress in his rehabilitation.

At that point. I learned that Medicare does not pay for long term care, and that my Dad’s stay as a resident would have to be funded privately to the tune of over $8,000 per month. Neither my father nor my family had the means to pay such an extraordinary sum for his needed care, and I was told to file a Medicaid application for him. I would have to do so immediately because the facility would only wait 90 days without payment for Medicaid benefits to kick in–and it takes about 90 days for a Medicaid application to be denied or granted. Should my Dad not have Medicaid, or another way to pay for his care, in 90 days he would have to leave the facility. Where would he go without funds to pay for any facility? This information caused me to experience a great deal of helplessness and fear.

Knowing I was out of my depth, at the time, I consulted and hired an Elder Law attorney in the area who dealt with Medicaid planning, and got some very good advice about how to make an application and what documentation was necessary. My parents came to the U.S. from Greece many decades ago, and they had little use for keeping organized records. Although my parents did have the foresight to plan for the disposition of their modest estate, they had not thought to make the type of planning they would need as they aged out of being able to care for themselves. I spent weeks going through and organizing their papers, statements, receipts and other documents so that I could determine what information was necessary to complete the application. I relied heavily on the attorney I had hired and consulted with him through the planning and application process– the spend down, getting bank documentation, figuring out what is excluded as an asset or income and what is included, and making follow-up communications with the Medicaid caseworker – until the application was finally approved. It was approved merely days before the 90-day deadline, the entire overwhelming process having taken just under 90 days to complete. When I called the attorney to tell him the good news, I had one last question for him: “How do people go through this process alone? I am a lawyer, and I was consulting with a lawyer, and it was still daunting.” He answered that Elder Law is an under-represented area of law and that helping people get through this process was why he loved his job. He then had a question for me: would I consider getting into this area of law and helping people like he helped me?

My answer is this law firm.