Don’t Let The New Regulation Discourage You From Accessing Medicaid Home-Care Services
New regulation recently passed regarding the use of the “Spousal Refusal,” is discouraging many eligible applicants from applying for Medicaid. However, once the applicant understands the new regulation, they will see that there are still opportunities to protect their life savings and receive the services they so desperately need and require. Simple definition of the new regulation: The new regulation regarding pooled-income-trust applies ONLY to married couple and then only if one spouse applies. Otherwise, everything is the same as it was. Today there are two available approaches for the ill spouse wishing to apply for Community Medicaid and receive home-care services. 1) The ill spouse (applicant), is allowed to have a maximum of $14,550 in their savings/checking and a maximum of $809 in income. Additionally, they are allowed to pay for their supplemental health insurance. Any amount above that income has to be surrendered to Medicaid or the applicant can join a pooled income trust and deposit the surplus income into the pooled trust for their use. If the ill spouse chooses to use a pooled income trust, the healthy spouse is not allowed to sign a “Spousal Refusal”. 2) If the healthy spouses chooses to sign a “Spousal Refusal,” the numbers change, in so far as, the following: The ill spouse will then be allowed to keep $383 of income per month and the healthy spouse will be allowed to have a total income of $2,931 per month. See example bellow: Spouse applicant spouse has an income of $2,314 per month, and the healthy spouse has a monthly income of $1,000. Healthy spouse hold on to $60,000 in resources and signs a spousal refusal. Applicant keeps $383 of their monthly income and the healthy spouse receives $1,931 from the ill spouse’s income. No one knows how long this new regulation will exist for, but one thing for sure, there are many options left on the table for applicants wishing to apply for Medicaid medical assistance.