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Applying for Medicaid (i.e., Medical Assistance) can be like walking into a minefield. There are a number of ways that a Medicaid application can go wrong—and the consequences can be absolutely devastating. Here are some examples of common problems we see. 1. Nursing Home Mistakes Sometimes a nursing home files the Medicaid application but doesn’t…
Protect your house from nursing home costs
Medicaid Medical Assistance Rules About Countable Assets Medicaid Medical Assistance rules clearly indicate that: Income is converted at the beginning of the next month to a countable asset. Applicants can have no more than $2,500 in countable assets. Applicants whose incomes are deposited at the beginning or middle of the month usually have no issues with…
Filing for Medicaid Filing for Medicaid (called Medical Assistance in Maryland) is a very paper intensive process. Often times it is the children of the parent who ends up trying to gather the mountain of information needed for the application process. Given the five year look back requirement, the burden is often high on that family…
We just won another Medical Assistance appeal issue. In this case, Medical Assitance was initially denied for nursing home benefits and the son of the Medical Assistance applicant was handed an invoice from the nursing home for over $100,000. Needless to say, he was upset. We were able to successfully argue that that the transactions…
The issue of whether or not an IRA asset is a countable asset is an interesting issue from a Maryland Medical Assistance perspective. For individuals and their spouses, when an ill spouse goes into a nursing home and reviews the issue of applying for Medical Assistance for the ill spouse, the issue that routinely comes…
For Medical Assistance (i.e. Medicaid) eligibilty, Maryland will examine the amount of assets held by the applicant and by the applicant’s spouse (if any). The most the applicant may have at the time of filing is $2,500 and the most a spouse may have (currently) is $109,560. The bigger question is what is a counable…
A good portion of our clients engaged in virtually no planning (before they came to our office) when faced with a parent or loved one entering a nursing home. Even in this late stage of the game, there are plenty of opportunities to protect a parent’s or loved ones’ assets from nursing home related costs. …
Medicaid Asset Protection from Nursing Home Expenses One of the most often used techniques to protect assets for a single individual is the use of the “controlled gifting” technique. With this technique the higher the fixed income and lower the nursing home costs the greater the savings. This technique involves controlled gifting and most likely the use of…