Confusing a wellness visit with a physical could be very costly. As part of the Affordable Care Act, Medicare beneficiaries receive a free annual wellness visit. At this visit, your doctor, nurse practitioner or physician assistant will generally: ask you to fill out a health risk assessment questionnaire; update your medical history and current prescriptions; measure your height, weight, blood pressure and body mass index; provide personalized health advice; create a screening schedule for the next 5

In addition to making things easier for your family during a difficult time, prepaid funeral plans can also be a good way to spend down money in order to qualify for Medicaid. But the plans come with risks. Consumers lose millions of dollars every year when prepaid funeral funds are misspent or misappropriated. A funeral provider could mishandle, mismanage or embezzle the funds. Some go out of business before the need for the prepaid funeral arises. Others

When creating an estate plan, the main decision is how your assets will be distributed after you pass away. The terms “per stirpes” and “per capita” become important when your descendants include children and grandchildren. In a will, these terms are often written as “I leave my [fill in the blank] to my descendants, per stirpes (or per capita).” Per stirpes Distributing your assets per stirpes (sometimes called “by right of representation”) means that your assets

Nursing home residents do not automatically have to sell their homes in order to qualify for Medicaid, but that doesn’t mean the house is completely protected. The state will likely put a lien on the house while the resident is living and attempt to recover the property after the resident has passed away. Medicaid (known as MassHealth in Massachusetts and Medi-Cal in California) will not count a nursing home resident’s home as an asset when determining

The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act changes the law surrounding retirement plans in several important ways: Stretch IRAS. The biggest change eliminates “stretch” IRAs. Under the previous law, if you named anyone other than a spouse as the beneficiary of your IRA, 401(k) or other tax-favored retirement plan, the beneficiary could choose to take distributions over his or her lifetime and to pass what is left on to future generations (called the