The Elder Law Coach

Turning Mistakes Into Mastery: The $6850 Letter

• Todd Whatley

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What happens when a small oversight turns into a $6,850 lesson? Join me, Todd Whatley, on a journey through the complexities of elder law, as I recount an unforgettable personal story that underscores the critical importance of communication and documentation in the Medicaid application process. This episode isn't just about a mistake; it's about embracing errors as stepping stones to improvement and growth. Learn how the Community Spouse Resource Allowance (CSRA) plays a vital role, and why removing an institutionalized spouse's name from assets exceeding $2,000 is a non-negotiable step in elder law practice. By sharing this open and honest account, I aim to empower fellow attorneys to recognize that even seasoned professionals stumble, and that the true value lies in the lessons we extract from these experiences.

To prevent future missteps, I discuss the transformative power of office checklists, designed to ensure every detail is accounted for, much like the protocols that keep airline operations running smoothly. Hear how these structured processes can maintain client trust and uphold a law firm’s reputation. Additionally, I introduce an exclusive coaching program crafted to elevate your elder law practice, particularly for those eager to master crisis Medicaid cases swiftly. This program promises to guide you from your initial client interaction to the final resolution, equipping you with the expertise needed to thrive. Subscribe now to gain more invaluable insights, and visit our website for resources that can help make you an elder law authority.

Check out our new website www.TheElderLawCoach.com.

Speaker 1:

Thank you. Specialized experience, Whether you're an established attorney looking to refine your expertise or an emerging lawyer seeking a successful foray into elder law, this is your masterclass. Now let's get started with the luminary in the field. Here's Todd Whatley.

Speaker 2:

That's right. This is the Elder Law Coach. My name is Todd Whatley, I am the Elder Law Coach and I appreciate you listening, as always, and if you haven't subscribed, please subscribe so that you'll get immediate notice when we post a new podcast. And one of my New Year's resolutions is to be much more consistent with this. Be saying it in the past, but I'm putting some things in place in my office so that it will free up some time for me to be able to do more of these and to be able to get more information out there. So today I am a little cranky, aggravated with myself, with staff, with the process, and I want to share that with you because, as you know me, my job is to make all the mistakes for you so that you don't have to. So let me just kind of back up a little bit and the reason I do this, the reason I come onto this platform and say, yep, we messed up. I messed up A very expensive mess up and, as you can tell by the title of this podcast, it was a $6,850 problem mistake, a letter that was not sent out as it should have cost me $6,850. So I tell you these things because I have never worked in a big firm, I've always worked for myself, and so when I was figuring this out and if anyone knows my story, you know when I started doing this, I did it absolutely by myself. There was no one locally to help me. The only elder law attorney was not sharing information. There was not anyone like me, an elder law coach, that I could call and get advice from.

Speaker 2:

I figured this out myself, and when I would make mistakes, I'm like I'm probably the only person who's ever made that mistake and I would just feel terrible about myself and think, oh my God, I'm terrible at this, you know, I'm the only one who's ever done this. And I think, oh my God, I'm terrible at this, you know, I'm the only one who's ever done this. And so, as I got into it and became much more confident, I was willing to share mistakes and problems with other people. And they're like yep, done that. And just by hearing people talk over dinner they don't ever say this from this stage when they're presenting, but going to conferences and things having dinner with people and they're like man, I got a one-star review this week, or man, I just had to write a check because, blah, blah, you know I messed this up or whatever, and I was like, okay, so I'm not the only one who's ever messed up.

Speaker 2:

So I want to share this with you so that you understand yeah, some people that have been doing this a really long time mess up, and no one's perfect, and so I encourage you to share with me, call me and say, hey, man, I messed up. Can you help me through this one little bit? I would be glad to because, trust me, I've been there, done that. I won't think bad of you. Hey, you're just part of us. Okay, if you've never made a mistake, I would wonder what you're doing. You're not trying very hard or you're not putting much out there, but we've all made mistakes, and so I wanted to bring this up today and this was a very good teaching point that we all learned in my office and I wanted to share with you. So why $6,850? You probably know, and if you don't, I want to teach you on this specific point.

Speaker 2:

But the whole purpose of today's podcast is not to teach you just this one specific Medicaid point. It's a general practice tip, okay, but specifically, if you do Medicaid, when you get a married person onto Medicaid, you understand that the amount that they have to get down to is half of the snapshot amount, are the maximum community spouse resource allowance, csra, all right. So whatever that number is, the community spouse gets to keep and then no more than $2,000 or whatever your state's number is for the institutionalized spouse. So there's the community spouse money and then the institutionalized spouse's money, and those are on paper. They're not specifically in bank accounts. I mean, you don't have to get the InstaTouchline spouse all the way under $2,000 for the application and the snapshot date. But almost every state that I've looked at, within a year from qualification you do have to get the InstaTouchline spouse's name off of anything over $2,000. And so generally we get their name on one bank account where his Social Security goes into and that's it. Okay. His name's off the IRAs, everything else, and you don't have to do it immediately at the time of application. But you can do it within a year because at the one year re-evaluation they're going to come back and see what does he have his name on and if it's more than $2,000, even if it is within the CSRA, his name is on it. It's over $2,000. You're disqualified, okay. So that's the rule.

Speaker 2:

We have a letter that says that, and toward the end of this I'll talk about things to do to prevent this in general, but I am almost positive. We send out a letter initially saying hey, you're married, you're applying for Medicaid, here's some things you need to be aware of, and it's a long letter, it's got a bunch of stuff, and I do that mainly to cover myself and to let them see here's the process. But you can expect them to remember all of that and get it all correct, particularly at the front end, when you're dealing with stuff. Almost a year later, I do know that we have a final letter that goes out once we have gotten this person qualified for Medicaid. I know that we send out a letter that says congratulations, you're qualified, here's some things you need to be aware of. And one of those things that we put in there to make sure the person is aware of is this issue with the institutionalized spouse cannot have their name on more than $2,000. Okay, and so therefore, it's in a letter, we say it and it's there and it's covered, and it tells people, or at least we can point back to this letter and say we told you this and we try to bring it up verbally, but at least we have it in writing and we know that we gave it to them. Well, in this one case, my Medicaid person and if you know my office very well, it's Sarah. She's done a fantastic job with me. I'm not mad at her Things happen okay.

Speaker 2:

But it was a letter that did not go out and sure enough she did not get her dad's name off of this account and sure enough she did not get her dad's name off of this account. And so when Medicaid found that they came back with two months of disqualification Now for some reason I was able to get one month fixed, but the other month I could not get fixed and it was, you know, after his income paid, what he always had to pay. The difference was $6,850. And I tried to put it off. I tried to get DHS to approve that month and they just wouldn't. And so finally the client came in and I just admitted I was like we have a letter and I can't prove that we've sent it to you, and she said I never got that letter. I said I know, and because we did not tell her to do that, she did not know to fix it and I thought the only ethical thing to do was to reimburse her for that month that she had to pay because we did not tell her to get his name off of that account.

Speaker 2:

Now you may see that as being just overly generous and it's like, oh, I would have fought that. I've never had a client file a claim on my malpractice insurance because I take care of it. And just if I had a major you know many tens of thousands or $100,000 claim or whatever, sure I would put that on my insurance. But for small amounts you know that the insurance company is going to fight them and it's going to be delayed and they're going to have to hire an attorney and an attorney is going to take a third of the settlement. And it's just it's not in the best interest of the client or their family settlement, and it's just it's not in the best interest of the client or their family. And so, therefore, I have always stepped up to the plate, paid the damage and just moved on, and I think I have a good reputation for doing that and people appreciate that and I sleep really well at night.

Speaker 2:

Okay, you may do it differently, but that's how I do it not. Okay, you may do it differently, but that's how I do it. So how can we prevent that? Well, we have implemented checklist, so there's a we have, obviously, a checklist of items. We need to start the application Now. We are doing a checklist to end the application. Once they're approved, once everything's done, there's a checklist of things.

Speaker 2:

Did you do this, did you do this, did you do this? And I don't have that in front of me because that's not the purpose of this podcast no-transcript, relying from memory. And one thing I don't like to think about this but what if your assistant was killed in a car wreck? There was no way they could say, hey, I'm going to be gone from now on. Here's some things y'all need to look at. What if, boom, instantly gone? How would you know what to do for that person? How would someone stepping into that person's role be able to do their job? If you have checklists in place and procedures and policies in place, it's very simple for another person to step into that role, pick up and carry on exactly as they were doing.

Speaker 2:

Okay, and so that's one thing I honestly did not do in my office, and it's one thing we are now implementing is checklists of things at the end of the application to make sure the client knows this, that we have told them this and we have proof that we've sent the letter or had the conversation with them. And so it is so important to do to get documents in place, checklists, letters. You know closing things, closing letters to make sure things are taken care of and done Okay. So I encourage you, learn from my mistakes. I hope you never have to write a very big check to a client because your office messed up. Learn from my mistake. Learn from this 6850 whoops that you need to do a checklist, you need to make sure the client knows this and that your staff knows exactly what to do. But take this as an opportunity to grow and say, hey, we're going to have lots of systems and procedures in place with checklists, and you think, oh man, checklists. Think about this A pilot, a commercial airline pilot, who flies all day, every day.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I know they don't work every day, but when they work they typically take a lot of flights. They do this all the time. You would think taking off and landing would be just what they do, but they have checklists. There are checklists that they do every single flight. Okay, even though they just did it 30 minutes ago. They're doing it again. They have a checklist and they go through it.

Speaker 2:

And so, particularly those things that you do repeatedly that are always the same, always there, have a checklist, make your staff go through it, have a checklist for this client it's got their name at the top of it and you go through it and once you check it off with dates or proof or whatever it's there, you've done it. It's part of the client's file so that you can go back to it and say, yep, we did the checklist, it's done. All right. Okay, I feel better now. I feel better that, yes, this cost me $6,850, but hopefully I can share with you and I can help you not make that mistake and I'll know that I've hopefully helped someone out there. Do better. Do better than me, okay, and not make this mistake again and do good for your clients and keep as much money as you can and not have to pay it out in uh-oh fees. All right, I hope this was helpful. If so, please let me know.

Speaker 2:

Todd, at the elderlawcoachcom, just say hey, Todd, appreciate the podcast. Yes, I've made that mistake. Thank you for telling us, or I was about to make that mistake and your podcast kept me from it. That would just absolutely make my day. So I would love to hear feedback from you. Todd, at the elderlawcoachcom, please email me and, as always, if you want to get into elder law and do it really well and do it quickly and not turn away those clients that you've been turning away for crisis Medicaid, take it, get the information, call me, let's go through it, let's get you into coaching and I will walk you all the way through this, from the very first meeting all the way through the end. Okay, give me a call. Appreciate you listening. Please subscribe and I will see you next time.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for joining this episode of the Elder Law Coach Podcast. For those eager to take their elder law practice to new heights and are interested in Todd's acclaimed coaching program, visit wwwtheelderlawcoachcom. With Todd Whatley by your side, the journey to becoming an elder law authority has never been more achievable. Until next time, keep learning, keep growing and stay passionate about elder law.