How does the assignment of a Beneficiary Payee for social security work regarding the recipient's bank account?

Thanks to you both.

I will double check with her bank, but I think she has free checking with no handling charges. It's one of those no frills banks. They don't even have a ATM outside of their branch, no automated number to get info, etc. It's just a bare bones bank. I'll check though. Yes, you are right about her having no money. I wasn't sure about depositing her check into my account, then depositing into the account at the facility.

Sunny - I understand why you want to do this. Totally. Speak clearly with her bank to see what fees would be associated with her account. Like for my mom since she gets 2 automatic direct deposits (her SS and federal retirement), there is NO monthly service charge; its waived due to the direct deposits. I pay the NH for mom's SOC and every 3 months or so add $ to her personal needs trust account @ the NH. But if the checks weren't DD, it would be a monthly $ 9.50 checking account service charge. So see what her bank is going to have for service charges. If her the bank has to bill a $ 15 a month service charge, then it likely just isn't feasible to keep an account open unless you are willing to pay the service charge costs for the rest of her lifetime.

If your POA, you could sign her name and then your name and deposit it to your bank account. Then write a check for that exact amount and add it to her personal needs trust account @ the NH. The NH will deposit it and place it in there for you.

Really once they qualify for Medicaid, they are impoverished and there just flat isn't money to ever pay on things anymore. If she has outstanding debt, it's gonna have to go to collections. If she needs new clothes, then you as POA can withdraw funds from her NH trust account to buy things for her. The NH trust account has to kinda be monitored too because it cannot go over the Medicaid limit for assets. So in a year @ $ 66 month, the account would have $ 792.00 in it. It has to be spent occasionally. My mom's NH mails me a trust account statement every 90 days & upon death the balance will be sent to me or my cousin who can sign on the trust account (she lives in the city, I'm out of state) in a check less any outstanding charges on mom's account.

She has no other income, but I wanted to keep it open for miscellaneous items that might arise. She received a refund check for $10.00, so I would like to keep her regular bank account open. Update: I spoke with the director of the facility and she confirmed the social security check would be directed to their facility's bank account, which I think will work out just fine.

I'm her POA and if she gets a check, I know of no other way to handle it without depositing it into her bank account.

Sunny -? for you, for NH Medicaid the elder is required to do a co pay or their "SOC" share of cost of ALL their monthly income less their personal allowance. Like for my mom, she gets $1800 mo and $1740 gets paid to NH as her states personal is $ 60. So other than the $60 there isn't any other $ coming in as Medicaid requires everything else as income to be their copay to facility.

What other funds are coming in for your cousin to "feed" her bank account?