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booger04 Asked February 2021

Mom recently passed away. She was on Medicaid. All her personal funds had been depleted. The NH is billing me for $15,000. Am I responsible?

She did have 2 small whole life policies for a total of $7500.00 for burial expenses. She has no other assets. I had already sold her house and the nursing home already took that. Am I responsible for the $15,000? I feel like they added the value of the insurance policys to her bill. The funeral home has filed for the policy to be paid to them. The funeral arrangements had been made at least 4 years ago. Will I have to pay this out of my pocket? I can't afford it either. Just does not seem right.

Portier Feb 2021
I am adding a firm NO to the other answers. Of course you are not going to pay.

BurntCaregiver Feb 2021
No. You are not responsible for any of that $15,000 the nursing home is trying to collect from you. It's a shakedown on their part. If any money was owed (which there is not) it would be owed to Medicaid because they're the one paying the nursing home bill.
I'm assuming those insurance policies must be more than five years old since Medicaid does a five-year look back on applicants finances. Otherwise they would be asking after them. If they aren't then you have nothing to worry about.
You personally do not owe the nursing home one cent.
Medicaid pays them and if they're not claiming you owe money, or going after the insurance policies then don't give it another thought. There is no expenses you will have to pay out-of-pocket to the nursing home your mother was in. If she was on Medicaid, they paid her entire bill there.

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worriedinCali Feb 2021
Unless you signed an agreement with the facility to be personally responsible for the bill, you aren’t responsible, her estate is responsible. If her estate has no money, then the nursing home is SOL.
BurntCaregiver Feb 2021
The mother was on Medicaid. They were paying for the nursing home. They did a five year look back on the mother's finances and assets. She got approved or they would not have been paying for her care.
The insurance policies don't matter because if any expenses were owed, they would be owed to Medicaid not the nursing home because Medicaid is the one who's been paying.

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