Episode 1: Who is PLAN of MA & RI? – with Joan McGrath
Jordan: Welcome to the PLAN for Special Needs Trusts podcast presented by PLAN, the Planned Lifetime Assistance Network of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Our Plan is your Plan, and I'm your host, Jordan Rich. We thought it a great idea on this initial podcast for you to meet Joan McGrath, Executive Director of PLAN. Joan has more than 25 years experience in professional accounting and finance, and she's been with PLAN since 2009. Joan, welcome. How do you define the overall mission of PLAN of Massachusetts and Rhode Island? 

Joan: PLAN is a special needs trust organization. We're a professional trustee. Our largest product, if you will, is a pooled trust. PLAN itself is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit where we serve people with disabilities lifelong or related to illness, injury or age. We preserve assets, protect benefits and allow the person to have a quality life. 

Jordan: It's a real mission of public service, isn't it? 

Joan: Yes. And it's something that people don't think about. You don't think about having a trust. When you think of a nonprofit, many people think of the hands-on, providing services. The service that we provide is something that is invaluable and not every organization can provide. 

Jordan: The idea of a professional trustee. What does that mean? 

Joan: A professional trustee is an organization that would work in a way to protect the person with a disability. So in the case of PLAN, we work with that person to take the funds that are set aside for them and invest that money. Protect that money. Special needs trust is set up for a person for their sole benefit, so it is to protect them to protect their access to public benefits. If someone has access to public benefits, that allows them to receive treatments that they may not have been able to afford on their own, and in some cases, treatments that are offered or the programs that are offered are better than they would get if they weren't on public benefits. So having a special needs trust allows them to be on those benefits or receive those public benefits, but still have their own funds set aside in a trust to supplement. If you are over 65, the only option for you is to join a professional trustee, a pool trust that has to be administered by a nonprofit,

Jordan:  Which is what you do. Very ably. 

Joan: Right. 

Jordan:  And what about people under 65? There's a big population of adults with adult children who might have issues. Let's talk about them. 

Joan: Right. So if you are a person that's under 65 and you're an adult, you're over 22, you're no longer in the school system, you're receiving public benefits or you're not receiving public benefits, but you're expecting that you will in the future take advantage of that. It's important to have a special needs trust set up so that the money that you inherit or that you receive from a settlement can be put into that trust for your benefit. And to have a professional trustee, sometimes it's court appointed, sometimes the courts believe that you should have a professional trustee in place. You don't want to have your sibling be in charge of your money. You don't want to go and ask your sibling or your parent who's setting up the trust doesn't want that relationship to be impacted. So they set up a professional trustee. And as a professional trustee, you're expected to provide timely processing of disbursement requests. You're expected to know the rules of whatever the benefit is that the person is on. It could be SSI, Medicaid, Section 8 case. There's just a number of benefits that people could be on, and you need to know the rules so that you don't make a disbursement that would negatively impact that person. You need to file trust accountings annually, tax reporting letters and prepare tax returns. All of those are required by a trustee, professional or not. That's a lot to ask of someone else to do. There's a lot of annual accountings and there's communication with Medicaid that needs to happen if the person is going to be recertified or when they pass, what happens to the money then? If it's a first party trust and the person has a payback, which they will if it's a first party trust, it's their own money. Medicaid will come looking for that money. So you need to be able to give them the documents that they're asking for in order to settle out the trust. 

Jordan: Bottom line plan takes a lot of this worry away because you've got a team in place, both the legal team and we'll talk about the social worker team as well. But that's important for people to remember. There are a lot of responsibilities, but a lot of those are taken care of by PLAN. 

Joan: They're taken care of by PLAN. And to speak to the social work piece, that's unique. To plan, we have social workers that work with the beneficiary and the families and the attorneys to answer their questions and to guide them in using the trust so that it doesn't impact negatively their benefits. It's a wonderful thing because we have people in the trust that are elderly, have been disabled since birth, are newly disabled, they are brain injured, or there's just a host of different things. And these social workers are trained to deal with whatever the disability is. 

Jordan: I think that's a very important point to reiterate that there are more issues at stake than just financial. Let's take care of the money issues and you do. But then on top of that, help the people because everyone's got a story, as you know. 

Joan: Yeah. 

Jordan: What about the history of this organization? Because you're celebrating an anniversary of sorts. Very excited about that. But back up a little bit and tell us how it gets started. 

Joan: So in the late 1960s, a group of parents got together. They were looking for ways to advocate for their children with disabilities. A big concern for them was what was going to happen to that child when the parent was gone. And many parents to this day that I speak with that is their biggest concern. Who is going to take care of their child when they're gone? So these parents got together and they put together they worked to put together an organization called MARC Trust and we were incorporated and we've been in place ever since. We changed our name in 1987. I think the name changed to PLAN of Massachusetts. In 2000, we added Rhode Island. So PLAN of Massachusetts and Rhode Island serves people with disabilities in both Massachusetts and Rhode Island. And we are the largest in New England. 

Jordan: Happy golden anniversary then. 

Joan: Thank you. 

Jordan: Yes, 50 years is quite an accomplishment. So let's get back to the question at hand. Why someone out there who's perhaps lost at sea and doesn't know where to turn, why they would find an answer at PLAN and how. Let's focus on those people. 

Joan: So if the person is over 65 and they are now looking at having to go into a nursing home or have someone come into their home and take care of them, they're sort of that rush at this point. Now they don't know what to do. And because PLAN is available and is actually the only option for somebody over 65, the money that's transferred into PLAN is not subject to a five year look back. As many other things are, special needs trust is not pooled. Special needs trust is not. So they can put the money in and know that it can be set aside for their sole benefit. It can be used to supplement whatever they don't receive from Medicaid. If you're under 65, you want to make sure you have a special needs trust in place so that an aunt or an uncle or a grandparent does their will and they can actually put in place that the money is transferred into this special needs trust for the grandchild or the child or the nephew, the niece. So in that case, that would be a non Medicaid payback trust. It would be a third party trust. And that is the ideal situation. That's really what people should be doing. They should be planning in advance to put the money into the trust that's considered a third party. 

Jordan: So a key question is, how does PLAN compare to other professional trustees? We've talked about what a professional trustee outfit does, but PLAN is exceptional for many reasons. Tell us why.

Joan: PLAN of Massachusetts and Rhode Island is actually listed by the Social Security Administration. It's recognized by the Social Security Administration in their what they call the Program Operations Manual. And we are considered experts in pooled trust. We are considered experts in special needs trust. We have been around a long time and have excellent working relationships with elder law attorneys and special needs attorneys in setting up 90% of our referrals come from attorneys. We are the lower cost option for people. So you could have a trust and set it up with another professional trustee. If you're under 65, that would be an attorney, a bank. But they often have minimum deposit requirements of half a million, a million, a million and half. And many people don't have that kind of money. They also charge fees that are a lot higher than what we charge. And they don't offer the same services that we do where you are assigned, so to speak. A social worker that stays with you through the life of the trust works with your beneficiary loved one to make sure that they continue to receive access to public benefits, but also that the money is invested. The hope is that it's making enough money to cover the fees that are charged. 

Jordan: And very quick point of order. The minimum requirement is what with PLAN? 

Joan: We don't have minimums. So you can open up a trust with any amount of money. We do suggest that you start with at least $10,000, but there is no minimum to join. So often we've had people join the trust and then they sell their home and then they put the money in the trust. If they didn't have the trust and they sold their home, that would be then they'd have to spend that down before they could receive benefits. If they were on benefits and they sold their home without putting in trust, they would be kicked off benefits. There's a lot to consider. 

Jordan: What clients suggest in testimonials that are out there is that it's a holistic approach. They often know that once they initiate this, they don't have to worry and be concerned about all the things you mentioned. In other words, you do take care of people from the moment they sign in and get involved. And that is a huge lift off their shoulders. 

Joan: Absolutely. So that's our mission is to work with the family, the beneficiary, to make sure that they have a quality life. It's a way to help that person. It's not something that people think about right away, but it is something that allows people to sleep at night knowing that your child or your loved one is going to be cared for, that you yourself are going to receive the benefits that you need and that all that you worked for throughout your life is there for your benefit. 

Jordan: And before we wrap up here, let's talk about communication with clients and soon to be clients and the importance of that, how critical it is for you to respond. And I know you do, you and your team to questions, and there's no such thing as a silly question. Do you want to comment on that? 

Joan: Exactly right. We do not charge for calls. We do not charge for questions. You can call as many times as you need. And we are happy to answer your question. If we can't answer your question, we reach out to someone that can. We give referrals too. If you don't have an attorney, we can give you the name of several attorneys in your area that we have worked with. But again, there is no silly question. We know how difficult this is. It's not only is it your loved one yourself, but it's your money and you want to make the right decision knowing you're working with a nonprofit that has been around for 50 years. We have 750 beneficiaries and we have $60 million in assets under management. We have had beneficiaries for many years with us and we work and establish those relationships so that we are supporting that person 

Jordan: Well, Joan, thank you for being so forthcoming and for everything you and your team do to help people. We appreciate it. 

Joan: Well, thank you, Jordan very much. I appreciate the opportunity to speak about PLAN. I hope it's beneficial to people out there listening. 

Jordan: We want to thank you for listening to the PLAN for Special Needs Trusts Podcast Presented by PLAN (The Planned Lifetime Assistance Network of Massachusetts and Rhode Island). PLAN is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit company where the goal for every one of its clients is always to preserve assets, protect benefits and live well. For more visit www.planofma-ri.org/ We invite you to subscribe, download, rate and review this podcast and thank you for sharing it with others. Our plan is your plan.