Hiring the Wrong People to Assist with Medicaid

If you are a regular reader of my blog you know that getting a Medicaid application approved can be tricky to say the least.  As the process becomes more and more involved and complex, we are receiving more calls than we ever have seeking our assistance.

When I discuss our fee, people often tell me that they have spoken with a “Medicaid company” whose fee is less than ours.  My response has always been that you get what you pay for.  Medicaid is a combination federal and state program that consists of laws, regulations and court decisions interpreting those laws and regulations.  I explain to prospects that when an interpretation of these laws and regulations is necessary or when the State misapply these laws and regulations, you need an attorney to advocate on your behalf. 

While to some, hiring an attorney seems costly or unnecessary, if it turns out you weren’t eligible when you thought you were, but that realization happens 3 or 4 or 6 months after you filed for Medicaid, you can only fix the problem moving forward.  Even if you hire an attorney at that point, more likely than not you will lose months of Medicaid eligibility costing tens and in some cases hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid long term care costs.   That’s why hiring a Medicaid company to possibly save a few thousand dollars just doesn’t make sense when measured against the risk of being left with a nursing home bill that could reach into six figures.

One of those Medicaid companies recently was in the news.  New Jersey’s attorney general and Division of Consumer Affairs announced last month that the State  filed a complaint against Advanta Medicaid Specialists, accusing the company and its two owners of defrauding consumers who paid them thousands of dollars each for assistance in obtaining Medicaid.  According to the complaint’s allegations, the defendants took in over $300,000 and did not do what they promised.  In some cases they filed but then abandoned the applications.  In other cases they never filed the applications at all.  The owners are also accused of spending the money for their own personal reasons having no connection to the business of filing Medicaid applications.

For more information on this story go to https://www.nj.com/advice/2019/12/medicaid-advisory-company-defrauded-consumers-of-330k-used-money-for-high-end-purchases-state-says.html