My mother's money is running out and we will need to apply for Medicaid. Should we apply for now or wait until the money runs out?

Mom gets a lot of money there. The A&A can't be used once on Medicaid. In NJ a person has to be in a home within 60 days or you have to reapply.

My first suggestion is to clearly find out what moms state has as the maximum monthly income allowed for LTC Medicaid. At $2200 she could be just over the maximum, as most have it $2100. If so, she can likely do a Miller Trust to deal with the overage. You need an atty to do the Miller. 

But what could be a bigger issue is what medically “at need” mom needs to be for your states Medicaid program. LTC requiring skilled nursing care in a NH is covered by Medicaid. But for most states AL isn’t covered, and for some memory care isn’t either as neither are skilled nursing care. I’d try to have a care plan meeting asap to clearly see where mom is for “need”. Now if she’s not needing skilled there may be a waiver program that Medicaid does for MC or AL. I’d make this a real priority to find out. 

The place she is now, do they have a sister facility that is a NH and takes Medicaid? If so, that would be where I’d go to look at first.

Regarding VA Aid & Attendance, if she segueways to Medicaid, the A&A will stop completely (she can get it suspended) and will go instead to a $90 a mo personal needs VA allowance. She can’t get both Medicaid & A&A. Medicaid is better as it pays all of the NH room & board costs. VA A&A is great for lower cost AL or for doing a spend down, like what you all did. 

? For you? the $ in a bank account under your name, is mom’s RRR income & VA $ getting deposited into this account?