Conference Agenda
Revolutionary Planning: Beyond the Docs
Thursday, April 20, 2023
1:30PM - 5:00PM
6:00PM -7:30PM
Friday, April 21, 2023
7:45AM - 8:45aM
8:45AM - 9:00aM
9:00AM - 10:15AM
Since January 2020, the SECURE Act has complicated how IRAs are treated after an IRA owner is no longer living. In February 2022, the IRS issued proposed regulations that clarified some questions and raised others. Despite its issues, this law brings good news for utilizing inherited IRAs in third-party special needs trusts. This presentation will review the current state of the law applying to inherited IRAs, whether distributed directly to an individual or a trust, including a third-party special needs trust.
10:15AM - 10:45AM
10:45AM - 12:00pM
This session will reinforce the importance of informing clients and other family members of the roles, responsibilities, and practical considerations of trustees of supplemental needs trusts. While special needs lawyers dedicate significant attention during the planning process to such issues as selecting future trustees, determining the amount of future funding, and considering needs, the actual day-to-day administration of special needs trusts is often overlooked. This program provides a roadmap on how to educate family members on proper SNT administration. The two presenters have been putting this program on for years, will teach you how to do it, and let you know what works and what does not. The unexpected benefit is that the family attendees often hire presenters to assist in their planning. It’s the best of all worlds, a tremendous boon to the person with a disability, proper education of the family, bringing in your special needs planning teams as speakers, and a new profit center for the planner.
12:00pM - 1:00pM
1:15PM - 2:15PM
HOTMA will mean dramatic changes to how applicants and residents for Section 8 benefits will have their income and assets counted towards eligibility and rent. It will have an even more profound impact on the use of Special Needs Trusts for beneficiaries who receive Section 8 benefits. The law has been passed but has yet to be fully implemented. Learn what is in store, what (if anything) the special needs planner can do, and what advice they can offer the Section 8 recipient.
2:15PM - 2:45PM
2:45PM - 3:45PM
Traditionally, if a person with a disability required assistance with decision-making, the standard response was a court-ordered full guardianship or conservatorship. This action resulted in the person with a disability losing essentially all control over their life. Today, there are less intrusive, better alternatives for maximizing the individual’s autonomy, including limited guardianship and non-judicial options. The speakers will discuss the newer Supported Decision-making model, which has evolved from a collaborative concept to a statutory option spreading across the country. The panel will review other standbys, such as healthcare proxies, HIPAA releases, powers of attorney, joint bank accounts, and ABLE accounts for the practitioner’s tool kit. This program also will identify issues for the practitioner to be mindful of when advising clients about how to strike the right balance when planning the least restrictive decision-making support while still protecting individuals from predators, undue influence, and changes in the capacity that can occur over time. This program will identify the issues and provide real-world answers.
3:45PM - 4:00PM
4:00PM - 5:30PM
Charting the LifeCourse is designed to assist individuals with special needs and their families with planning for their best life. Professionals and families can use the framework to enhance conversations about the individual’s goals and integrate services and supports to achieve those goals. The tools will help you organize ideas, brainstorm solutions, identify resources, and advocate for a person-centered plan.
Care plans are a critical component of comprehensive special needs planning. While estate planning attorneys often refer to financial planners, and vice versa, rarely are care planners’ part of creating a client’s multigenerational plan. This often leads to unmet needs, underfunded trusts, and a lack of critical support to ensure a loved one’s future is secure. Modern approaches to care planning may also utilize digital care plans – turning static documents into easily maintainable and updateable tools that can improve our clients’ lives today, not just when they’re gone. Daily schedules, medications, document vaults, and more can be shared with family members, trustees, caregivers, and professionals to provide in-depth information to everyone in the circle of support. Incorporating a care plan into the estate and financial planning process yields better outcomes, additional planning and product opportunities, and greater client satisfaction.
Saturday, April 22, 2023
8:00AM - 9:00AM
9:00AM - 10:15AM
The Social Security Act is one of the largest and most difficult to understand pieces of legislation. Congress granted enormous flexibility to the Commission of Social Security to write the eligibility rules. Even the SSA federal regulations are more general than useful. What is useful are the 53,000 pages of SSA Program Operations Manual or “the POMS” which includes decisions by SSA’s ten Regional Counsel answer specific questions on special needs planning. This program reviews recent good and bad changes in the SSA rules, the most important legal opinions issued by SSA’s attorneys, and the relevant changes to the POMS affecting the special needs practice. David Lillesand provides his always well-received overview of Supplemental Security Income by covering the new regulations, new cases, new Regional Chief Counsel Precedents, and any new POMS released. . .
10:15AM - 10:45AM
10:45AM - 12:00pM
The ever-popular ending to ASNP’s national meeting. We gather our resident experts on all things special needs planning related. These experts will respond to your questions and hypotheticals. Try your best to Stump these Chumps with your questions. Be amazed at their responses and the knowledge gained from these sessions.
12:00pM - 12:15PM
April 16 - 20, 2020
Available on Video
Get up-to-date information about retirement planning, medical expense tax deductions, strategies for growing your practice, planning for digital assets, evaluating financial planners, integrating veteran’s benefits, and more.
Thursday April 16, 2020
Available on Video
Understanding public benefits for persons with disabilities is critical to understanding how to prepare and administer a special needs plan. This program will discuss the fundamentals of Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Childhood Disabled Beneficiary (CDB), Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), Medicaid, and Medicare as they concern persons with disabilities. Without knowledge of what is (and is not) available through public benefits and the rules that govern them, there is no special needs planning for attorneys or financial advisors. Moreover, without knowing the effect a distribution has on public benefits, an SNT trustee will not be able to properly administer special needs trusts.
By Theresa Varnet and Travis Finchum