Grandpa went into a nursing home on 4/1. He was private pay for part of the month, but then Medicaid pending. I know there will be a penalty period because he gifted me $5,000, 1.5 years ago plus he put his car in my name last year when he stopped driving for insurance purposes (so I can use it to bring him to appointments). We are still waiting for Medicaid response. My plan was to sell the car to pay when we found out what the Medicaid penalty would be since I obviously didn’t want him to be kicked out of the nursing home. But, he has since passed away while we are waiting for Medicaid. Am I responsible to pay the penalty period? Or is it considered his debt and goes away since he passed and he had nothing left?
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If grandpa had no money at the time of his death then no bills will be paid, and bills will be returned to the sender with the notation "Died. No Estate."
On the first: What’s probably happening is the NH Medicaid LTC application is still being processed as it tends to be 2-3 month at best and 5-6 months for many states. If something happens (penalty, hospitalization) during the process (this happened for my MiL as she got hospitalized then back to NH then rehospitalized which reset NH entry dates then died), it throws it all off for processing then add in even more for LTC Medicaid system to cancel the filing. Whomever is POA will get a whole bunch of letters that seem not to make sense / that are all out of order over the summer from the State. Just set aside.
Right now & until the transfer penalty is issued by the State, grandpa is still Medicaid Pending.
On transfer penalty, yes, it’s going to surface. How penalty’s work is basically a math (division) problem which places # of days of ineligiblity.
State has $ amount it reimburses daily to NH for room&board. That car has a Blue Book value. Let’s say car is $17,890 & state pays $250 room&board = 71.56 days of ineligiblity. NH private pay rate is $333 a day (do NOT have to bill lower Medicaid rate).
But as others have said, it’s an ineligibility placed on grandpa as to his daily bill to stay at private pay rates at the NH. But as he is dead, there is no bill except for those days from the date he filed for LTC Medicaid to his DOD. How many days is this? Let’s say it’s 26 days @ $333 a day (10K mo) = $8,658.00 that grandpa’s estate owes the NH. Transfer penalty is by # of days of ineligibility. NH does not care abt the car.
In theory whatever correspondence you get from either State or NH will NOT matter as any bills or costs are all now debts of the Estate of your grandfather. Grandpa had died, so whatever assets he had at his DOD (day of death) technically become assets of his estate and whatever he owed are debts of his estate. And his / your State have a system for dealing with this via probate laws, should probate be opened. Probate will have a window in which it can be opened and it’s on creditors to file a claim in probate court to try to get their debt paid from a distribution of the assets.
HOWEVER
if POA signed any admissions paperwork to make themselves financially responsible for payment, the NH will come after POA for the outstanding bill. Hopefully whomever did grandpas admission has copy of all the documents to see exactly what their exposure is in all this. If this was a huge transfer penalty- like a house so it’s 6 figure$ - those can get ugly as the NH can get APS involved to try to get it such that you took advantage of a vulnerable adult legal filing done. The threat of this type of action tends to be enough to get family to settle the bill. But for a car, not enough $ imo for a NH to to warrant getting their legal involved to do this. But maybe not. Often NH will turn it over to debt collectors to try to seek payment from whomever they can, even if legally the persons they contact do not technically owe the money. Debt collectors are ruthless.
whomever was POA should expect to get a bill from the NH. They may want to think about proactively drafting up a response to the NH that is something they are comfortable with. Just in case.
Welcome to our forum. Sorry to see you lost your grandfather passed away. You are not responsible for his NH expenses. As said by other readers, his Social Security and pension of May, paid in June, are accepted by Medicaid. Any payments received in July must be returned because that money is for June, but your grandfather passed away in May.
You may owe the NH his Social Security check if he received it.
Did he die in April or May? If he died in April, he should not be receive the payment received in May. If he does, do not use it, SS will claw it back. Checks received in May are for April.
If he died in May, he is entitled to that check but not Junes. I would hold on to that check because the NH may claim it.
Same with any Pension he receives.
When all is said and done, you are not responsible for your grandfathers debts.
Since you signed in his behalf and did not agree to pay out of your monies, the NH can only legally demand pay from his monies. Of course, some NHs aren't above badgering family members to intimidate them into paying...
Did Grandpa have Last Will? If so, who is the Executor? Did he own a home when he passed? If so, then his estate probably needs to go to probate. If there's no home, no assets, no cash, then I'm not sure what Medicaid could claw back.
I agree with Mstrbill, to wait and not worry too much.