Terry is Barclay Damon’s elder law and Medicaid planning team leader, primarily concentrating his practice on helping seniors get the care they need. He is passionate about helping individuals of every economic status and ability to maximize their autonomy and independence while simultaneously ensuring that their family members will also be financially taken care of. Terry has extensive experience obtaining NYS Community Medicaid benefits for clients, including full nursing-home and aide-service expense coverage, transportation services, health insurance and pharmacy subsidies, wages for family caregivers, and a $45,000 home-improvement budget every three years for both homes and rentals.
Terry strives to keep his clients in their homes as long as possible through creating sustainable plans. If a client cannot remain in their home, though, or there is a sudden need for nursing-home admission, he uses 25 years of trusts and estates experience to successfully protect assets of all sizes, regardless of how little planning a client has done. As a general rule, Terry helps individuals protect about 1/2 of their assets plus their qualified accounts if they suddenly enter a nursing home and has helped couples protect all of their assets even after one spouse has entered a nursing home.
Terry routinely handles matters involving nursing-home care and asset protection, guardianship planning, estate litigation, and Medicaid-related litigation. He has extensive experience with outright gifts, Medicaid-permitted trusts, supplemental-needs trusts, loans, annuities, and deeds. In addition, he routinely prepares essential documents such as wills, trusts, powers of attorney, statutory gift riders, health care proxies, and other documents necessary for estate probate and related administration.
Terry strives to help clients avoid probate and through simple, straightforward measures, where appropriate. He also manages the forensic analysis required to process Medicaid applications and to address prior transfers that would otherwise contaminate the plans.