Ask the Expert: Gifts can delay Medicaid
Doling out funds from an estate as gifts can delay Medicaid payments under a look-back policy. Credit: iStock
The children don't have to return the money. But if the gift has delayed Mom or Dad's Medicaid eligibility, it sure would be appropriate for their kids to use it to pay for their nursing home care until they qualify for assistance.
Gifts you make within five years of applying for Medicaid nursing home assistance temporarily disqualify you for its help. (This is true only for nursing home benefits, not for Medicaid at-home care.)
To get Medicaid to waive the five-year "look-back," you'd have to convince officials at a special administrative hearing that you made annual gifts as part of a long-established estate plan unconnected with your current Medicaid application, says Bernard A. Krooks, a Manhattan elder law attorney.
To calculate how many months you must wait to be eligible for benefits, Medicaid divides the value of gifts made within the "look-back" period by the average monthly cost of a nursing home in your county. For example, the average monthly cost of nursing home care on Long Island is $11,445 -- so if you gave your kids $68,670, your eligibility is delayed six months.
The five-year test applies to any assets you gave away, with a few exceptions; gifts between spouses don't count. The spouse outside the nursing home can keep up to $109,560. The one receiving Medicaid can't keep more than $13,800.
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