Medicaid & Title 19 Planning in Connecticut
Eligibility strategy, asset protection, and application help for families navigating the cost of long-term care.
Medicaid — called Title 19 in Connecticut — is the program that actually pays for long-term nursing home care once someone qualifies financially. The problem most families run into is that qualifying isn't simple: strict income and asset limits, a 5-year look-back period on transfers, and an application process that's easy to get wrong in ways that cost real time and money. Medicaid planning is the work of navigating all of that correctly, ideally well before a health crisis forces the issue.
Why this matters: the average monthly cost of long-term care in Fairfield County, Connecticut is approximately $19,000 — enough to exhaust most families' savings within a year or two without a plan in place.
What Medicaid Planning Actually Involves
Medicaid planning isn't a single document or a single meeting — it's an ongoing process tailored to your specific assets, income, family situation, and timeline. Depending on your circumstances, it can include:
- Medicaid eligibility analysis — a full review of your income and assets against Connecticut's current Title 19 limits
- Medicaid Asset Protection Trusts (MAPTs) — irrevocable trusts structured specifically to meet Medicaid's rules while protecting a home and savings
- Spend-down planning and alternatives — legal ways to restructure assets without simply exhausting them
- Medicaid application preparation and filing — making sure the application itself is accurate, complete, and well-documented
- Home protection from Medicaid estate recovery — strategies aimed at keeping the family home out of the state's recovery claim after a Medicaid recipient passes away
- Crisis Medicaid planning — for families who need care immediately and don't have years of lead time, a more limited but still real set of options
When Should You Start Planning?
As early as possible. Connecticut's Medicaid look-back period reviews the 60 months (5 years) before an application for transfers of assets below fair market value — so strategies like a MAPT need time to clear that window to be fully effective. Families who start planning years before care is needed generally have access to more tools than families planning in the middle of a crisis. That said, "it's too late" is rarely actually true — crisis planning is a smaller toolbox, not an empty one.
How We Work With You
Start the Conversation Before It Becomes a Crisis
Attorney Christopher Greenwood has spent over 40 years helping Connecticut families navigate Medicaid planning. Teleconferencing consultations are available.
Schedule a Consultation (203) 375-4040Frequently Asked Questions
It starts with a consultation to review your assets, income, family situation, and timeline. From there, we outline which legal tools actually apply to your circumstances — not every strategy fits every family — and build a plan around that. The earlier this happens relative to when care may be needed, the more options are typically available.
Fees depend on the complexity of your situation — a straightforward eligibility review is different from a full asset protection trust structure. We discuss fees clearly during your consultation before any work begins, so there are no surprises.
No, and waiting until a crisis is usually the most expensive way to approach it. Advance planning — done years before care is needed — opens up strategies like Medicaid Asset Protection Trusts that crisis planning can't fully replicate. That said, families already facing an immediate need for care still have real legal options; it's a different, more limited set of tools, not no options at all.
No. Filling out the application is the last step. Medicaid planning is everything that happens before that — structuring assets, understanding the look-back period, using available exemptions, and making sure the application is accurate and well-documented so it isn't delayed or denied.
Learn more: What Is Title 19? A Complete Guide · Connecticut's Medicaid Look-Back Period Explained · Medicaid Asset Protection Trusts in Connecticut
Protect What Your Family Has Built
The sooner Medicaid planning starts, the more options are on the table. Let's talk about where you stand.
Call: (203) 375-4040