Medicaid wants deposit/transfer/withdrawal explanations but my dad has a brain tumor and is unable to communicate?

Medicaid looks for hidden assets and income (Medicaid Recovery Program). Every state is different.

Is every state able to look back past the 5 year loopback period to 10 years? Why isn't this done more often when there is a Probate Court case to check out what a POA has done when he has weakened his mother's asset pool by gifting to his own family for the past 7 years?

There is a lot of good information here, but I always recommend getting a lawyer who handles this type of thing and talking to them. It can't hurt and it might help.

tk - you have been given really good advise. I think the problem is 2 things:
1. that the way you are presenting the details and documents to Medicaid are not "overwhelming" enough for the Medicaid caseworker to sign off on….it's just too much of a little here & a little there with too many missing parts.
2. problems in determining dad's "SOC".
Did you get a list of items required for NYS Medicaid review and have you submitted all the items on the list?

Vstefans is right, the caseworker does want to have your dad approved, but until you can provide what they need to do that, their hands are tied. Each state runs their Medicaid program under an overall federal guideline, some states (like NY & TX) are very document driven. For my mom (TX Medicaid), I got a 1 page list from the NH as to what would be needed to accompany her Medicaid for NH application. (the NH reviews the documents too mainly to determine if they (NH) will accept her as a "Medicaid Pending" resident). I submitted her details as an over 100 page document dump to the NH which in turn submitted it with their bill to the caseworker for their (the NH's) area; in turn the initial caseworker has about 10 minutes to scan to see what's there and if it meets the required "set" of requirements - my guess is that what you are submitting doesn't fit for how NYS evaluates; for my mom, the initial caseworker called me (also sent a letter too) as to the status on mom's insurance - whether it had any cash value - now caseworker had a copy of actual policy front & back (about 30 pages too) to read but he doesn't have the time to do that nor does he have the training to evaluate insurance policies but he can require that my mom provide those details. I got a broker who held a TX insurance license to do a letter stating that the policy was NCV - no cash value - and faxed it to the the caseworker, caseworker could then put the fax in mom's file and check off that item and put mom's application into the initial review "approved" pile. She had a secondary review too due to real property ?'s and that was a whole other set of issues…..My point is Medicaid is very detail driven of a review.

For your dad since he is young, he doesn't have the SS or retirement history and annual statements that Medicaid uses to determine their income and what their co-pay or "SOC" (share of cost) needs to be. The SOC figure is critical for Medicaid to determine just what they will reimburse the NH and what the NH is fully expecting and required to get paid from the resident. (BTW it's my experience that both the Medicaid programs and the NH do a piss poor job of explaining the SOC.) That is probably why you are getting these hurdles as to where the deposits are coming from, they are trying to get a fixed $ amount for his SOC. Like does the check for $ 866.00 last June represent something that dad would get every June - it's those sorts of ? that need to be determined to figure out dad's SOC. Understand? Without knowing what his SOC can be, Medicaid cannot pay the NH. Realize that most NH Medicaid are elderly and have an established SS statements and retirement / or annuity statements that match up to their SS # or their spouses SS # so determining monthly income (and therefore the SOC) is readily available and documented to be accurate.

So what to do??, if you can be very OCD on all this, you can basically reconstruct dad's financial life for the past 5 years, you will have to do (you do this as if dad was asking for this too as VStefans suggested) an IRS request for his last 6 years of taxes; contact anyone he worked for the last 6 years and all his banking for 6 years,. Yeah, the review is a 5 year look back but the states can go up to 10 years if they want. Then you get a program like Quickbooks or Quicken and get all dad's checkbook and other expenses in. Basically doing a P & L on dad to show that he is now impoverished & "at-need" for Medicaid (usually that is 2K in non-exempt assets and 2K in monthly income - but the income amount is set by each state and can vary, like my mom's was $ 2,094.00 when I did her application).
I would suggest you contact the caseworker directly to see just how they want the income and asset details presented to work for how they review in NYS also this shows you want to be transparent in all this too. Good luck and keep a sense of humor in all this.

If he went to a casino, he has a casino card, and you might get information on his transactions online or at the casino.

Can any of his friends remember when the casino trips were? The checks written to "cash" may have been to play, eat, or stay at the casino. Did he contribute gas money on these trips? If the checks are not for large amounts, like thousands of dollars, they are not likely to be questioned. Most people keep some cash around for incidentals. Do the deposits "match up" with any of the casino trips? Maybe he had a couple of lucky outings!

You may have to just tell them that you have no way of knowing on the smaller amounts, maybe he was paid a little for handyman work or something? The larger deposits though you might have to track down, or try to, and if you hit a dead end you tell them that too. Was he paying off a credit card company where he might have used a third party check by any chance? Again, if just doing that to meet expenses, I don't see it would be a problem. If you send all the bank statement copies, and those indicate no transfers out to other accounts, and a letter detailing good faith efforts on trying to get more details with as much information as you can actually find, it might be enough that they will approve.

Thank you everyone. I am his POA so I do have access to bank records and whatnot. I have all the cancelled checks the problem is they were written out to cash. And there is a larger deposit here and there, maybe from a loan from somewhere? These are from 2010, there is no outstanding loan now so I have no idea where it would be from. He has no 401 or IRA, just his checking & savings. No annuities or inheritance, he has nothing. There there are 4-6 cash deposits they want to know about for $100.15, 200, 150.00, 400.00, etc. from 2010!! Do you remember why you deposited 100 bucks cash 4 years ago???? I sure don't and I don't have a tumor! All he has had throughout the 5 years is DBL for about 2 years until SSI kicked in for the last 3 years. I havn't found any receipts, or ppw relevant in my search. He wasn't able to do any side work as his hips are shot, he could barely walk before the tumor struck. He went to a casino here and there with friends a few years back, never mentioned winning any sums of money, and he was never one to gamble much. I don't even know where to go to try to track down what these could be. This is all just too much. Thank you all for your advice and kind words.

It is possible, though not strictly kosher, to get e-mail passwords if they are not guessable, and some others then sent to you if you know enough of the security question answers and such. I am so sorry to hear about your Dad's diagnosis, it is hard enough you are going to lose him soon without having to spend the precious time you have left going to such lengths to deal with getting financial help.

You are at a minimum going to have to get representative status for him with Medicaid, probably SSI representative payee, and it is a shame no one got papers done for POA before the tumor made him unable to manage because with that you would have been able to get everything you need even if you can't find all the relevant papers at home. You may be able to take him to the bank to ask for statements if you can't find any, or take him with you to the local Medicaid office so they can see what the situation is and be sure you are not trying to fool them with your story. Go ahead and send them all the things they ask for, be friendly and cooperative; there really is not anything to worry about since you are not in fact trying to hide anything. If you are lucky you will be able to get to know a couple of local staff, and likely some of them will be very willing and wanting to help you see that dad gets what he needs.

It is hard to answer these questions, mostly because you lack the familiarity.
Pour yourself a cup of tea or a glass of wine. Look up his tax statements, interest or dividend paying accounts will be listed there. Start by printing out the past years statements for any and all accounts. Investigate any receipts, and look for the matching statements. Pile the year with the most recent month on top. Compare across accounts, maybe money moved from savings to checking. Maybe he had an IRA with a distribution.
Overall, you need to know the income declared in his taxes is accounted for in his spending pattern, acknowledging that we all have a bit of walking around cash that leaves no trail. Once you understand the picture for yourself, you will better be able to represent it on his behalf.

I happen to know my mom's financial picture, because I have been her errand girl for decades, otherwise this would be very difficult.

Dad did not have a secret money tree in the yard, I do think if you can represent the picture with confidence you can influence the investigation.

You put the pieces together as best you can. Was Dad a handyman? Was someone giving him money to help out? Was he selling off personal items? Just be honest and answer what you can. If he did little odd jobs, well he can't do them now, so that income is gone. If he won money at the casino, that is gone too. If he bought or sold vehicles, try to figure out what and when. If he kept old receipts, try looking through them.

Money coming in may reflect another source of income or assets, such as dividends from stock, or rental property, or royalties etc. Did he have an inheritance or annuity? I would search for such things when doing a financial analysis in determining someone's ability to pay a back tax liability. Some deposits may just have been putting some cash back into an account from your wallet to cover a check that was written. Were the deposits loans or gifts? If they were loans they are not income. Was there any proof of a loan? Did he use payday loans? On the money transferred to you and brother, were these repayments of previous loans from you? Did he loan it to you or make it a gift? BTW, check with your state office that handles unclaimed property. You can do a search on line. I recently claimed a few dollars. The lady ahead of me in line was going to receive over 8k from stock her mother had bought and lost track of years ago.