Each year, the New York State Department of Health issues updated average costs of nursing homes for each region in New York. These numbers are important, particularly when protecting assets from nursing homes at the last minute.

The new “Regional Rates”, as they are called, can be found here. The most relevant for those of us in the Hudson Valley is the “Northern Metropolitan” rate of $12,805. This is the effective rate for people applying for nursing home Medicaid in Orange, Ulster, Dutchess, Rockland, Sullivan, Putnam and Westchester counties.

The new rates for other regions are:

• $10,451 – Central
• $11,295 – Northeastern
• $12,460 – Rochester
• $10,720 – Western
• $13,407 – Long Island
• $12,844 – New York City

This rate is important because when someone needs a nursing home and has not proactively protected their assets, the only option they are often left with is referred to as a “gift/loan” or “half a loaf” plan. In such a plan, an experienced elder law attorney will undergo a calculation that factors in the:

• nature and extent of the applicant’s assets
• applicant’s income
• cost of the nursing home
• applicable Regional Rate (as issued by the Dept. of Health)

The higher the Regional Rate, usually that means the more assets an individual can save. So when the Dept. of Health acknowledges that the cost of care in a given region is increasing, they are ensuring that our asset protection techniques work as they should.

Stay tuned for our next post which will describe in more detail how we are able to save a substantial amount of a person’s assets even in the last minute, using the techniques mentioned here.