Help is out there, you just need to seek it.
Elderly and disabled people who find themselves in a crises situation, such as, the need for home care services or nursing home care are told they need to spend down their life savings before they can apply for Medicaid medical assistance.
Allow me to simplify the issue:
There are two (2) types of Medicaid application and they are: (1) Community Medicaid, and (2) Nursing Home Medicaid.
Community Medicaid:
At the very core Community Medicaid is health insurance. Once approved the recipient can also request home care services.
There are two (2) components to Community Medicaid Eligibility, which Medicaid are strict about. The first is the applicant’s Resources or Life Savings, and the second is the applicant’s Income.
Resources or Life Savings cannot exceed $14,850; however, if the applicant has more than the allowed amount, they simply transfer the surplus to anyone and the following month they become eligible.
Income cannot exceed $825 per month; however, if the applicant receives more than the allowed amount they have a choice: 1) is to surrender the surplus to Medicaid or 2) they can join a pooled income trust and deposit their monthly surplus into the trust and instruct the trust to use that money to pay their bills.
Wouldn’t you agree that the above is far better than spending down the applicant’s life savings?
Nursing Home:
The ideal nursing home application is when an ill spouse transfers all of his/her assets to the well spouse and the following month the ill spouse becomes eligible, providing the couple did not gift out their assets in the last 5 years.
The more challenging nursing home application is when there is no spouse? In this scenario, the applicant can gift approximately 50% of their life savings and use the other 50% of their assets to pay the nursing home for the penalty period that the gift created.
Now, suppose the applicant needs or wants something, like a T.V. set in their nursing home room, or new cloths, etc., they will have the ability to receive those items because they saved a good portion of their life savings; however, if the applicant spends down their life savings and then applies for Medicaid medical assistance, guess what? If they need anything they won’t be able to get it.
Wouldn’t you agree that the above offers the applicant more options? And a way to secure for themselves the peace of mind that their own money will be there to assist them.