Joint tenancy, taxes and Medicaid recovery. Anyone have any experience with this?

I intend to talk to a elder law attorney about this. I'd just like to go in with as much knowledge as possible. Does anyone have any experience with joint tenancy with regards to taxes and medicaid recovery?

First, my understanding is that if someone is placed on the deed as a joint tenant that they may be liable for gift taxes. That's like 40%. But that there is a roughly $5,000,000 lifetime exemption that can be used to avoid taxation on that. Is this roughly right?

Second, how does Medicaid recovery work for joint tenancy? Is the lookback period the same as for any other gift or establishing a trust? Will Medicaid try to recover the whole house, none of it or just the portion that any deceased person held. I've read all those things. Either they go for it all, just the portion of the deceased or they hold off entirely until the last joint tenant dies.

For background. No one is on Medicaid. We don't even know if anyone will be. We are just exploring the options. Yes, I understand a trust is another way to go but for this discussion let's not consider that an option.