Both my Mother and Step-Father are applying for Medicaid, he'll be going into a nursing home, she into assisted living.
When they purchased their house over 20 years ago I was a minor and a portion of my inheritance was used to purchase the house. I am under the impression that my name is on the property deed, it was not on the mortgage. I have not lived there in 15 years. If my name is in fact on the deed, and has been for 20 years, how will this affect their applications?
But for Medicaid, property is considered an asset. Usually their home is an exempt asset for thier lifetime. Now although this sounds just terrific, the issue becomes that they have to do a co-pay (also called their SOC -share of cost) of all their monthly income less a small personal needs allowance to the facility. They basically have no -none -nada -zero $$ anymore to pay for any costs on the home. Most of the time the home is sold & the proceeds from the sale used towards their costs of care.
If family wants to have the home kept, family will need to pay all the costs on the home and then deal with probate or heirship or % of ownership issues and any MERP /estate recovery by Medicaid. It will not be simple and could have significant costs over time.
Before you start on the "what ifs", you need to get all the items attached to the property that is recorded at the courthouse. Often counties have an on-line to get all thes which you pay a very nominal fee for them & then either they get emailed as a diwn load or if their old (maybe pre 1995 or so) filings, they get pulled, copied and mailed to you. Like a Release of Deed of Trust is $ 7.00 type of cost. Try to get all the paperwork to see exactly how it was titled, etc. And then seek who've legal is needed to safeguard your ownership.
Also in most states AL is private pay. So ckearly find out what Medicaid is anticipated to pay for or not pay fir.
We're very much in emergency mode on this application, so I am hoping this glitch won't hold things up. Thanks for taking the time to answer.
I do think that the medicaid application for a widow or widower is although document heavy is pretty straightforward….they gotta be impoverished. You or your Sis could do it if you all were involved in mom's life and knew where she would stash stuff. But for CS where 1 is not going into the NH and may need to private pay for care or need to pay to continue to live in the old house, well that is very much more complex. So much of what you read and folks experience with Medicaid (& I'm including NH staff) is all about an individual Medicaid application. CS they know little about and its nuances of how to evaluate income & assets. Personally I thin for CS you need to get an elder law attorney to come up with best options for the nonNH, nonMedicaid spouse (if mom is not going on Medicaid).
Whatever you & Sis do, do NOT ever sign your name…..it always needs to be "Linda Smith Jones in her capacity as DPOA for Mary Smith". and get a copy of every page of the admissions contract and all other paperwork. Don;t leave or give them a check till you have copies. At my mom;s first NH, I waiting almost an hr to get copies done. they were reluctance to do so but I held my ground. The admissions gal told me that I was like the second person who ever wanted all the paperwork. Family is in a rush, under stress and the move could be all emergency incident based (like from a fall or fire at the house), so family is mentally elsewhere. You need to get a copy of everything for both admissions. Good luck.
I do think it's really worthwhile for CS situations to meet with atty to discuss Medicaid compliant options in advance of ever applying for Medicaid.
Medicaid articles tend to focus on spend-down, getting impoverished, cashing in insurance policies, selling assets. Basically liquidating to impoverish, which is pretty straightforward to do. But doing things yo safeguard assets or re-assign assets forva CS is just more complicated. The csetting up
Also many people are covered by Veteran's benefits and don't even know it. The requirements are minimal (something like being active 1 day during wartime and having server a very short time) so often times people assume they are not covered. There is both a spouse and service member benefit that is well worth the investigation if either were in the military at any point in time.