Thank you all. She is medically in need. Currently private pay in Memory Care. Your points are important and well taken. Thank you for bringing that up.
I followed the checklist provided by the Medicaid social worker and submitted to him. My neighbored received her approval letter about three weeks later for nursing home care. She was not trying to shelter assets in trusts and was very low income.
For an individual widow or widower LTC Medicaid application, I think if the DPOA has already been in place and they are already signature on banking / financials & have been involved in their parents life, they can totally DIY the paperwork and documentation needed to get thru the “at need” financial aspect of Medicaid and get them in under Medicaid Pending. I did my mom’s Medicaid application for TX and helped hubs deal with his mom’s both in LA and then in TX (post Katrina with his brother) and then deal with annual renewals and then recovery. I think all states do some sort of renewal process & all are required to do a recoup attempt so you have to be able to keep files & documentation going till beyond death for them.
personally imo if you are not organized & already involved in & aware of their financials, they are best served by having an elder law atty refresh all their paperwork, perhaps do a codicil to the will if it’s old and then shepherd their Medicaid application. Then you take over keeping up their renewals and then MERP questionnaire, etc.
But please, please, please you have to also be mindful that for LTC NH Medicaid they must be also “at need” medically for skilled nursing care. This tends to get glossed over as most enter NH as post hospitalization rehab patient coming in with MediCARE paying. But eventually rehab ends so MediCARE coverage ends. And if coming from living at home, or in IL or AL, the medically “at need” strict criteria may flat NOT be there in their health care medical chart. My mom was in IL and moved from IL to NH, MIL was living in 1/2 of a duplex, for both my experience was that the state sent out a 2 person team (RN or NP and a MSW) who do on site 1-on-1 with the elder @ the NH to determine medical “need”. It’s not automatic. MILs was cursory and her NH needed residents & they got her declared legally blind while Medicaid Pending. My mom’s ran into a glitch as RXs from her gerontologist & were left out of her NH file, so the Medicaid medical appeals process had to be done. Which documentation wise really has to be done by the facility, although I had to actually file the appeal document. Nothing is ever simple....
Remember LTC NH Medicaid is “at need” BOTH financially & medically.
Hi - I'm an elder law attorney. I always advise my clients that they need not necessarily pay me to handle their application. They can go to a local Area Agency on Aging (AAA) to help them for free (assuming that the applicant is already financially qualified).
You'll get varying levels of customer service going through an AAA, but plenty get it done just fine.
I rarely think its a good idea to fill out the application on your own only because the applications are usually long and sometimes confusing and errors can lead to a delay in much needed resources.
We initially went to a meeting with an elder care attorney who gave us some free guidance. He later earned a fee for providing a POA. Prior to the meeting we downloaded the application from Medicaid and filled it out. He could tell at a glance what we needed to do. He gave us some initial guidance on Medicaid, but after that we did it ourselves. He gave us some concrete steps to take, and we did the legwork. The most important thing that he did was to tell us how the process worked. After that, it took time to get the financials from the bank. The people at the Medicaid office were very professional and kind. Most of them were very knowledgeable, but once, we interacted with someone who gave us wrong information which threw us for a loop for a while until we countered it with information from the website. Yes, there is paperwork and financials, and numerous calls, but stay organized, keep all your paperwork together and give yourself tasks daily. I asked the Medicaid office the same question you did, and she said that the majority of applications are filed by family members without the aid of an attorney.
Make that initial meeting with an elder care attorney, especially if it’s free. Come prepared with a prefilled out application. Go on the Medicaid website and write questions down about what you don’t understand. My mind goes numb when I read official language, but I found my state’s website was fairly easy to understand. Write down the names of people that you talk to and when.
Thank you.. Very much. My sister and I paid the legal fees for two attorneys for a guardianship instead if having our mom's trust pay, as we needed to conserve mom's resources.
In case you don't know readers, mom's attorney and ours.
Our attorney will charge 5k for Medicaid qualification. We are already into this for 5k just for guardianship. Thank you again.
Yes attorney will set up those trusts. I am interested in experiences of those who had to get parent qualified for Medicaid for MC, who did on THEIR OWN WITHOUT USING AN ATTORNEY.
I did it on my own (NY) but mom didn’t have a recent house involved. (She had deeded it to me years ago and I had sold it 6 years prior to applying so it was beyond the lookback). No trusts involved. For income has a pension and SS of $3400 mo. I studied the online instructions on the Medicaid website and got the paperwork together myself, which took a few weeks to get bank statements and pension & insurance info. Then DH and I took it to the Medicaid office for appt with a caseworker. After that the caseworker and I communicated via email & phone and I just had to send her a few more pieces of data. It took a few months but no major problems. This was for Nursing home Medicaid.
My Mom had a house that we were having problems selling because of the condition. I hired a lawyer to work with Medicaid with excepting what we could get. If Mom hadn't had the house, I wouldn't have had a problem getting her Medicaid.
The Miller/Qit trusts I would think you need a lawyer to set them up. Money can come from any monies Mom has.
7 Answers
Helpful Newest
First Oldest
First
ADVERTISEMENT
personally imo if you are not organized & already involved in & aware of their financials, they are best served by having an elder law atty refresh all their paperwork, perhaps do a codicil to the will if it’s old and then shepherd their Medicaid application. Then you take over keeping up their renewals and then MERP questionnaire, etc.
But please, please, please you have to also be mindful that for LTC NH Medicaid they must be also “at need” medically for skilled nursing care. This tends to get glossed over as most enter NH as post hospitalization rehab patient coming in with MediCARE paying. But eventually rehab ends so MediCARE coverage ends. And if coming from living at home, or in IL or AL, the medically “at need” strict criteria may flat NOT be there in their health care medical chart. My mom was in IL and moved from IL to NH, MIL was living in 1/2 of a duplex, for both my experience was that the state sent out a 2 person team (RN or NP and a MSW) who do on site 1-on-1 with the elder @ the NH to determine medical “need”. It’s not automatic. MILs was cursory and her NH needed residents & they got her declared legally blind while Medicaid Pending. My mom’s ran into a glitch as RXs from her gerontologist & were left out of her NH file, so the Medicaid medical appeals process had to be done. Which documentation wise really has to be done by the facility, although I had to actually file the appeal document. Nothing is ever simple....
Remember LTC NH Medicaid is “at need” BOTH financially & medically.
You'll get varying levels of customer service going through an AAA, but plenty get it done just fine.
I rarely think its a good idea to fill out the application on your own only because the applications are usually long and sometimes confusing and errors can lead to a delay in much needed resources.
Hope this helps!
We initially went to a meeting with an elder care attorney who gave us some free guidance. He later earned a fee for providing a POA. Prior to the meeting we downloaded the application from Medicaid and filled it out. He could tell at a glance what we needed to do. He gave us some initial guidance on Medicaid, but after that we did it ourselves. He gave us some concrete steps to take, and we did the legwork. The most important thing that he did was to tell us how the process worked. After that, it took time to get the financials from the bank. The people at the Medicaid office were very professional and kind. Most of them were very knowledgeable, but once, we interacted with someone who gave us wrong information which threw us for a loop for a while until we countered it with information from the website. Yes, there is paperwork and financials, and numerous calls, but stay organized, keep all your paperwork together and give yourself tasks daily. I asked the Medicaid office the same question you did, and she said that the majority of applications are filed by family members without the aid of an attorney.
Make that initial meeting with an elder care attorney, especially if it’s free. Come prepared with a prefilled out application. Go on the Medicaid website and write questions down about what you don’t understand. My mind goes numb when I read official language, but I found my state’s website was fairly easy to understand. Write down the names of people that you talk to and when.
In case you don't know readers, mom's attorney and ours.
Our attorney will charge 5k for Medicaid qualification. We are already into this for 5k just for guardianship. Thank you again.
I studied the online instructions on the Medicaid website and got the paperwork together myself, which took a few weeks to get bank statements and pension & insurance info. Then DH and I took it to the Medicaid office for appt with a caseworker. After that the caseworker and I communicated via email & phone and I just had to send her a few more pieces of data. It took a few months but no major problems. This was for Nursing home Medicaid.
The Miller/Qit trusts I would think you need a lawyer to set them up. Money can come from any monies Mom has.