Is there a formal letter to financial institutions asking for 5 years of statements?

What exactly is Medicaid asking for? If its about looking at the disposition of CDs, T bills, multiple accounts the past 5 years, you may be able to instead of getting & paying for statements on each account going back 5 years, instead get a bank officer to do a statement on bank letterhead & notarized as of the disposition on all held accounts. This is what I did for my mom & was totally accepted by medicaid caseworker. So the letter read "CD 12345 cashed in 2-2-2009 for $ 10,000, deposited into savings account #45678 on 2-2-2009", "savings account #45678 closed out 3-3-2011, deposited into checking account #34567 on 3-3-2011". Basically showing that the spend down happening, accounts being consolidated & where all $ went into with a verifiable paper trail. Took the better part of a morning and the bank officer knew exactly what my request was for as he'd done others. I only had to provide medicaid statements from only my moms final checking account that got her SS & retirement income and only 3 years of those as mom was in IL before moving into a NH (I think medicaid assumes if they are already doing private pay for care, thats where $ $$ went, so a full 5 year lookback not needed)

Now if there has been some funky-monkey with finances & gifting of $, this can't work. But if you've been diligently doing a spend down & consolidating & closing accounts ask if you can as it will be lots less paper & cost.

No, you just go see the bank officer with your Medicaid application. They will help you with the check images too. There is a fee.