Do You Need a Medicaid Lawyer in Florida, or a Medicaid Planner?

Screens for eligibility, plans a lawful spend-down, gathers five years of documents, prepares and files the DCF application, handles the interview and every request for information, checks the patient responsibility, and sets up the family for renewals. A good service does this every day and knows the Florida caseworkers, forms, and deadlines. Senior Care Resources has done it since 2007, in Florida since 2025, at a flat fee of $3,500.

An application service cannot give legal advice, draft legal documents, or represent the family at a hearing.

An attorney is needed when the case turns on a legal document or a legal judgment:

• Income over the cap: drafting the Qualified Income Trust.
• Gifts or transfers in the last five years: assessing exemptions, curing transfers, or planning around a penalty.
• A spouse at home with assets above the allowance: a Medicaid-compliant annuity, spousal refusal, or a court order for a higher income allowance.
• Paying a family caregiver: drafting a personal services contract.
• Real estate: changing a deed, the caregiver-child home transfer, a life estate, or an out-of-state property.
• Trusts: anything involving an irrevocable trust, or an existing trust that needs to be read.
• Incapacity without a power of attorney: guardianship.
• A denial: the fair hearing.
• Planning ahead: protecting assets more than five years before care is needed, which is where the largest amounts are preserved.

Florida elder law attorneys handling a Medicaid crisis case typically charge from several thousand dollars to well above ten thousand, reflecting the legal documents and strategy involved. Non-lawyer application services charge less, though many do not publish their fees; ours is a flat $3,500 for the application. Where a Senior Care Resources case needs legal work, Zacharia Frey PLLC quotes it separately and the family engages the firm directly, so the family pays for legal work only when the case requires it.

The problem with choosing one or the other is that a family rarely knows in advance which they have. An application company that discovers a $40,000 gift on the bank statements has to stop and send the family to find a lawyer, who starts from the beginning. A law firm that spends attorney time gathering bank statements charges attorney rates for clerical work.

Because our service was founded by an attorney and works with his firm, the screening identifies the legal issue on day one, the attorney handles that one issue, and our staff runs the application. The family gets one plan and one point of contact.

• Who founded the company, and is an attorney involved in the cases?
• What is the fee, and is it published?
• What happens if there is a gift in the look-back, or the income is over the cap?
• Who drafts the Qualified Income Trust or the caregiver contract?
• Who handles a denial?
• How long has the company been doing this, and who directs the cases?
• Will you serve my county?

Our answers: founded by elder law attorney Carl B. Zacharia; $3,500, published; the affiliated law firm handles it; the law firm; the law firm; since 2007, in Florida since 2025, directed by the attorney who founded it; yes, all 67.