When I first started planning for my son’s future, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. Special needs trust? ABLE account? Guardianship? Medicaid waivers? It felt like a hundred things at once, with no clear starting point.
This tool asks 10 simple questions about your family’s situation and gives you a personalized action plan — prioritized steps with links to the specific guides that apply to you. It takes about 2 minutes.
Your privacy: Nothing you enter here is stored, sent to a server, or shared with anyone. This tool runs entirely in your browser.
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Why Every Special Needs Family Needs a Plan
Special needs planning is not a single decision — it is a series of interconnected steps that protect your family member’s benefits, secure their financial future, and ensure they receive the services they need for their entire life. The challenge is that no two families start from the same place. A parent of a newly diagnosed 3-year-old faces different priorities than a sibling preparing to take over caregiving for a 40-year-old brother.
That is why we built this assessment. Instead of reading through dozens of guides trying to figure out what applies to you, answer 10 questions and get a prioritized action plan tailored to your family’s specific situation, your state’s laws, and the urgency level of each step.
What This Assessment Covers
The assessment evaluates 10 areas of special needs planning and generates recommendations based on what you already have in place and what gaps remain.
Benefits Foundation
SSI and Medicaid are the gateway to almost everything else in disability planning. SSI provides monthly income, and Medicaid eligibility is required for waiver services in every state. The assessment checks whether these are in place and flags it as the top priority if they are not.
Trust Protection
Special needs trusts protect assets without disqualifying the beneficiary from means-tested benefits. The tool identifies whether you need a third-party trust (funded by family), first-party trust (funded by the person’s own money), or pooled trust — and links to state-specific rules and cost information.
ABLE Savings
ABLE accounts let individuals with disabilities save up to $18,000 per year without affecting SSI or Medicaid eligibility. Each state runs its own ABLE program, and the assessment identifies your state’s specific program by name. If you select “I don’t know what an ABLE account is,” the results include an explanation.
Legal Authority
Guardianship and alternatives address what happens when the person with a disability turns 18. Parents lose automatic legal authority — even over their own child. The assessment checks whether guardianship, conservatorship, supported decision-making, or power of attorney is in place, and uses your state’s correct legal terminology.
Medicaid Waiver Services
Medicaid waivers fund home and community-based services like residential support, day programs, personal care, and respite. Waitlists in many states exceed 5 years — Texas has over 180,000 people waiting, and North Carolina averages 9.5 years. The assessment knows your state’s waitlist status and wait time, and flags “get on the list now” as a top priority when applicable.
Estate and Beneficiary Protection
Beneficiary designations, life insurance, and Letters of Intent round out the plan. Even families with a trust in place often have life insurance or retirement accounts that name the person with a disability directly — an accidental inheritance that can disqualify benefits. The assessment checks for these gaps and recommends our audit checklist.
What Families Typically Discover
After building this tool and analyzing the most common answer patterns, a few themes stand out consistently:
Most families don’t have a special needs trust yet. This is the number one gap. Parents know they should have one but haven’t started the process — often because they are unsure which type they need, or assume it is more expensive than it actually is. A third-party special needs trust typically costs $2,500 to $5,000 through a special needs attorney, which protects a lifetime of government benefits worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Families in waitlist states often don’t know they’re in a waitlist state. Many parents discover through this assessment that their state has a 5, 10, or even 15-year wait for Medicaid waiver services — and that they haven’t applied yet. In states like Texas, Florida, Kentucky, and North Carolina, every year you delay is a year added to the back of the line.
ABLE accounts are the most underused tool in special needs planning. About half of assessment takers either don’t have an ABLE account or don’t know what one is. These accounts let individuals with disabilities save up to $18,000 per year — and up to $100,000 total — without losing SSI or Medicaid eligibility. Every state has a program, and you can enroll in any state’s plan regardless of where you live.
The age-18 transition catches families off guard. Parents of teenagers frequently discover that they will lose legal authority to make medical, financial, and legal decisions for their child at 18 — even if the child has significant disabilities. Most states require you to file for guardianship before or shortly after the 18th birthday. Some families don’t learn this until it’s an emergency.
How the Recommendations Work
The assessment produces a personalized action plan sorted by urgency. Each recommendation falls into one of three categories:
Start Now
Critical gaps that put benefits at risk or require immediate action. Examples: no trust in place, not on a waiver waitlist in a long-wait state, no SSI/Medicaid application.
Important
Significant steps that strengthen the plan. Examples: opening an ABLE account, managing a waiver waitlist position, following up on a pending SSI application.
When Ready
Items that complete the plan over time. Examples: beneficiary designation audit, trust funding strategies, planning ahead for age-18 transition.
Every recommendation links to a detailed guide on this site. If you selected a state, the results also link to your state’s complete special needs trust guide with local attorney fee ranges, pooled trust programs, and ABLE program details.
Who This Assessment Is For
This tool is designed for anyone involved in planning for a person with a disability:
- Parents — whether your child was just diagnosed, is approaching the age-18 transition, or is an adult. The recommendations adjust based on the person’s age and your current planning status.
- Grandparents — who want to leave an inheritance that helps rather than harms. A direct bequest to a grandchild with disabilities can disqualify their benefits. The assessment shows how to redirect assets through a trust.
- Siblings — who are thinking about their future role as trustee, caregiver, or advocate. The assessment links to our sibling planning guide and addresses the unique legal and emotional dimensions of sibling planning.
- Self-advocates — people with disabilities planning for their own future. The tool adjusts all language and pronouns accordingly.
- Professionals — attorneys, financial planners, and social workers who want a quick framework for client conversations. The prioritized output mirrors the sequence most special needs attorneys recommend.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a special needs planning assessment?
A special needs planning assessment evaluates your family’s current situation across benefits, trusts, guardianship, waiver services, and savings accounts, then produces a prioritized action plan. Our free tool asks 10 questions and generates personalized recommendations based on your state’s specific laws and programs.
What are the most important first steps in special needs planning?
Three foundational steps: (1) Apply for SSI and Medicaid to establish benefits eligibility, (2) Get on your state’s Medicaid waiver waitlist as early as possible — waits exceed 5 to 15 years in many states, and (3) Set up a third-party special needs trust to protect assets without disqualifying your loved one from benefits. Everything else builds on these three.
When should families start planning?
As early as possible. SSI eligibility begins at birth. Medicaid waiver waitlists in Texas, North Carolina, and Florida exceed 10 years — a family that waits until their child is 18 may not receive services until age 30. Trusts can be established at any time, and ABLE accounts can be opened for anyone whose qualifying disability began before age 46.
Do I need a special needs attorney?
Some steps you can do yourself — opening an ABLE account, applying for SSI, or getting on a waiver waitlist. But setting up a special needs trust requires an attorney because the trust language must comply with both federal and state-specific requirements. A poorly drafted trust can disqualify your loved one from benefits. Special needs attorneys typically charge $2,500 to $5,000 for a comprehensive trust.
What is the difference between a third-party and first-party special needs trust?
A third-party trust is funded by someone other than the beneficiary — typically parents or grandparents through gifts, inheritance, or life insurance. It has no Medicaid payback requirement. A first-party trust holds the beneficiary’s own money (from a settlement, inheritance, or back-pay) and must reimburse Medicaid after the beneficiary passes. Most families start with a third-party trust.
What is an ABLE account and who qualifies?
ABLE (Achieving a Better Life Experience) accounts are tax-advantaged savings accounts for people with disabilities. You can contribute up to $18,000 per year, and balances up to $100,000 do not count against the $2,000 SSI asset limit. Anyone whose qualifying disability began before age 46 is eligible. You can open an account in any state’s program regardless of where you live.
Why does my state matter for special needs planning?
State laws affect nearly every aspect of planning. Trust rules, guardianship processes (some states call it conservatorship), ABLE program names, Medicaid waiver availability, and waitlist lengths all vary by state. For example, California has no waiver waitlist while Texas has over 180,000 people waiting. This assessment uses your state selection to provide location-specific recommendations.
What happens to my child’s benefits if I leave them an inheritance?
A direct inheritance of more than $2,000 can disqualify your child from SSI and Medicaid — potentially cutting off monthly income and health coverage, including waiver services they may have waited years to receive. This is why a special needs trust is essential: assets held in the trust do not count against eligibility limits. The assessment checks whether a trust is in place and whether your beneficiary designations are correctly structured.
Is this assessment tool really free?
Yes, completely free with no strings attached. The tool runs entirely in your browser — no data is stored, sent to a server, or shared with anyone. We built it because when our family started this journey, we wished someone had given us a clear, prioritized list of what to do and in what order.
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