Symposium is the nation’s leading estate and business planning conference. This year, Symposium offered over 50 learning sessions with 5 learning tracks, 45 speakers, our new Paraprofessional Symposium, and explored some exciting new services and products. If you weren't able to attend, check out what you missed in the highlights below!

Establishing Medicaid eligibility requires a substantial amount of information from applicants. Understandably, the government only wants to offer benefits to those that truly need it. However, what if the applicant needs information from a spouse who refuses to give it? Spousal refusal means that a well spouse refuses to contribute his or her income or assets to the care of the institutionalized spouse. Spousal refusal is allowed in New York and Florida, where the states have enacted a version of the federal statute that authorizes it. In Connecticut, spousal refusal was upheld by a federal court in 2005. The New Jersey Division of Medical Assistance and Health Service has a spousal waiver, which is a waiver of the resource assessment in limited circumstances. Namely, there had to have been a break in marital ties before the institutionalized spouse sought Medicaid; or, there could have been an unverifiable death or divorce of the community spouse; or the community spouse’s whereabouts are unknown. In a recent case, the Superior Court of New Jersey considers an applicant’s spousal waiver in the absence of these pre-determined events.

A Peer Group is an advisory group specific to your business and career. WealthCounsel’s Peer Groups are tailored to meet your needs as an estate planning attorney by focusing on developing your business plan, growing your client base, optimizing your billable hours, and showing you how to utilize technology for high-performance results. 

Here are the four ways our Peer Groups can help your practice: