Medicaid Asset-Protection Planning in NJ

For many New Jersey families, the largest threat to a lifetime of savings isn't the market — it's the cost of long-term care. In 2025, the median cost of a private room in a New Jersey nursing home reached $173,375 a year. Without a plan, costs like that can quietly consume the home and the savings you spent a lifetime building — the very things you intended to pass on to your children.

What catches most families off guard is how fast it happens, and how few options remain once a crisis is already underway. Medicaid is the program that ultimately pays for extended nursing-home care for most Americans, but it is means-tested: you generally have to spend down your assets before it will help. The families who plan early have real choices about how to protect what they've built. The families who wait until care is needed usually don't.

A Medicaid asset-protection trust is one of the tools families use to address this — but it is not the only tool, and it isn't right for everyone. It's one of several strategies we coordinate with the attorneys of the members and families we serve. Our role is the planning side: mapping your cash flow, asset titling, and beneficiary coordination, and showing how a trust fits with the rest of your retirement income and care plan. Your attorney drafts and owns the legal structure. We work alongside them so the whole plan holds together.

Genesis Wealth Advisor Group does not provide legal advice or draft trust documents. Medicaid planning involves complex federal and New Jersey rules; trust drafting and legal eligibility determinations are handled by your attorney. We coordinate the financial planning that supports those decisions.

"Medicaid planning isn't about hiding money — it's about making decisions early, with your attorney, so a long-term care event doesn't undo a lifetime of saving. The families who plan ahead have options. The ones who wait usually don't."

— Scott Jones, BFA^™ CPFA^® CRPC^® RFC^®

Medicaid is the primary payer for extended nursing-home care for most Americans, but it is means-tested — you must spend down assets below state limits to qualify. Assets properly placed in a Medicaid asset-protection trust, and held long enough to satisfy the look-back rules, may not be counted in that spend-down. The goal is to preserve a legacy for your family rather than exhausting it on care costs you couldn't otherwise plan around.

The five-year (60-month) look-back is a federal rule — established by the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 — that applies to long-term-care Medicaid nationwide, including New Jersey. When you apply, the county Medicaid agency reviews all asset transfers made in the five years before your application date. Gifts and other transfers for less than fair market value — including giving money to children or funding a Medicaid asset-protection trust — can trigger a penalty period of ineligibility, and New Jersey calculates the length of that penalty using a state-set divisor (as of 2026 about $12,270 of disqualifying transfers per month of ineligibility). This is the single biggest reason these trusts must be planned early, well before care is needed. Planning in a crisis leaves far fewer options. Your attorney confirms eligibility specifics; we help you time and coordinate the funding.

Families who own a home and want to preserve it, individuals with a family history suggesting a likely future care need, and those who want to plan proactively rather than react in a crisis. It is generally not appropriate for those who may need access to the transferred assets, or whose situation is better served by other tools — which is why we start with your full picture, not a product.

70% of Americans turning 65 today will need some form of long-term care in their lifetime — and about 1 in 5 will need it for more than five years. This isn't a rare event you're planning against. It's a likely one.

Source: U.S. Administration for Community Living / HHS — acl.gov/ltc/basic-needs/how-much-care-will-you-need. 

"My job isn't to draft the trust — that's your attorney's. My job is to make sure the planning around it actually works: that the cash flow, the titling, and the income plan all line up so the strategy holds together for your family."

— Scott Jones, BFA^™ CPFA^® CRPC^® RFC^®

Date Updated: June 29, 2026