Medicare has published new rules spelling out the changes, and an education campaign aimed at healthcare providers began in January. But many healthcare providers haven’t grasped it, either.

As you may know, Medicare has recently undergone a big change affecting long-term care and the availability of skilled nursing or therapy. Namely, thousands are now eligible for Medicare benefits, but you might just have to point that out to care providers.

The slow transition to full adoption of the rules and new standards of care, as well as the continuing plight of those left in a lurch, is discussed in a recent Reuters article titled “New Medicare coverage of long-term care off to a rocky start.” As pointed out there, you or a loved one may be eligible for benefits, but may need to fight to receive the benefits.

Formerly, Medicare would only pay for skilled nursing or physical therapy sessions if there were signs of improvement. The trouble is that skilled nursing and therapy are not always about improvement but about maintenance, or even slowing a natural decline to keep a patient in a positive state.

The rules were challenged and the case of Jimmo v. Sebelius brought about relaxed rules, allowing such services for far broader classes of patients. Medicare communicates these kinds of changes directly to healthcare providers and not to beneficiaries. However, it seems many beneficiaries are having to figure it out for themselves and push institutions to adopt the changes. As a Medicare beneficiary, it may be important to know what the new rules mean and how to advocate for your care or the care of a loved one.

The original article offers some important resources like the Center for Medicare Advocacy, as well as the Medicare Rights Center. Each of these resources has some helpful guides and much more information on this and other relevant issues.

Reference: Reuters (April 29, 2014) “New Medicare coverage of long-term care off to a rocky start”

To make that wealth last forever, you’re probably going to need future generations to replenish that wealth.

If you have wealth to pass on to the next generation, have you hoped that your wealth will continue on for generations to come? It’s a tough goal to have, considering you’ll be depending on the next generation to keep the wealth going instead of squandering it away. However grand your goals may be, there is a startling trend of inheritances that fail to lift up the family.

The startling trend of failed inheritances is known as “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves”, and Reuters picked up on the issue in a recent article titled “How wealthy families blow their assets.”  It seems the kinds of problems that can arise within a family are multifaceted, but the numbers tell a similar story: inheritances have a failure rate at 90 percent by the third year.

There is no tried and true formula for a successful family inheritance from generation to generation. Nevertheless, there are some important thoughts to consider in your planning and in your conversations with your family. Managing wealth is about responsibility. Therefore, not only do you have to be thoughtful and responsible in your own giving, but you want to encourage and inculcate thoughtful responsibility throughout the family.

As the original article mentions, most heirs have a dubious understanding of how to manage an inheritance in the first place – how to use it and live with it, rather than grind it down. Fortunately, but this is a learnable skill.

So how will you teach your heirs and help ensure prosperity for your family, your heirs and even your heirs’ heirs? It’s a difficult challenge but a worthy goal.

Reference: Reuters (May 6, 2014) “How wealthy families blow their assets

It may take some expert help to work out how to pass the pieces to your heirs. Parents’ collectibles can hold emotional meaning for adult children, and some collections carry financial value as well.

Estate planning is all about deciding how to dispose of your assets, but when it comes to assets, collections can be fairly problematic. After all, the reason it’s a “collection” is because the whole is worth something greater than the sum of its parts. You simply don’t have an unrelated list of items that you can just casually split up (or do you?). Kiplinger recently explored this challenge in an article titled “Leaving a Collection to Your Heirs.”

The fundamental question is this: what is your hope for your collection? Does the collection live on, and if so, under who’s watch? You might want the collection to stay together or to stay in the family for generations. This commonly is the case when the items are family relics or antiques. In addition, collectible assets can raise other vexing issues like possible taxation or even legal difficulties (an exotic gun collection, for example).

Another big issue to resolve is whether your heirs even want the collection? You might not want to take this one lightly. In fact, it might be wise to bring your heirs together to talk about it first. Who knows, you might have an heir who would love to begin enjoying your collection right now. This can bring a twofer. You get to watch them take over stewardship of the collection and you can share in the fun together.

Take a good look at the original article if you have a collection and really take to heart the difficulties that can arise. To get it right you’ll want to carefully enter these collections into your overall plan, and if the collection is an especially important or valuable one, then you will want to be sure to address it with the aid of competent counsel.

Reference: Kiplinger (April 2014) “Leaving a Collection to Your Heirs”

The vast majority of estate planning lawyers get requests for trusts that “motivate responsible behavior by the next generation,” said Los Angeles lawyer Jon Gallo, who presented an overview of the topic at the annual Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning.

If you are leaving behind an inheritance for the good of your young loved ones, you likely want to ensure that the inheritance will be a blessing and not a curse. Are they ready for the responsibility of having wealth? Or will they use it for “fun” to their own detriment? With careful planning you can make the inheritance itself provide the incentive to engage in good behaviors.

Incentivized inheritances offer you the chance to give the gift of possibilities and a secure future. Properly planned, such an inheritance can make your heirs pause to respect the inheritance and take responsibility for it. The Chicago Tribune looked into the topic in a recent article titled “Making sure your kids are trustworthy.”

Basically, to incentivize an inheritance is to build certain conditions into it. Ideally these conditions offer an heir a chance to grow and take responsibility. Want the inheritance? First, finish college, or go volunteer, wait until you’re a certain age, or just uphold shared values in your life. These are the kinds of conditions you could set for an inheritance and ask your heirs to work for them. This can be done with a will, however, for greater effect consider a trust. Specifically, many find an “incentive trust” or the more hands-on “principle trust” to be a powerful tool.

If you’re going to ask your heirs to think, then you’re going to have to expect the same of yourself. Incentive plans take a careful hand and a special awareness of your heirs, their motives and their possibilities. You don’t want to accidentally reward the successful drug dealer and penalize the poor college professor, for example. Finally, when it comes to actually putting the words to paper it takes some careful drafting to get it right and think of all the options. If you want your heirs to learn and grow, then it is worth the time and treasure to work with competent counsel and with your loved ones directly to build the best plan.