Are there any exceptions for the five year look back for Medicaid?

My daughter is a supervisor for the State of New Jersey’s Medicaid DD/nursing home program and she tells me that in New Jersey they are very strict. They even check trusts that people who are on Medicaid have just to make sure that they are not hiding funds in these trusts. Bear in mind that Medicaid is a federal-funded and state-funded program, which at the state level is funded by taxpayers’ dollars. In New Jersey, it’s a 5-year look back. You live in Pennsylvania, so you will have to check to see what their look-back policy is.

Yes, there are exceptions.
No, there is not a path to saying what they would be in your circumstances.
Yes, contacting an attorney would be best for safe answers.

The amount of money that disappears from one's account and raise red flags will be different from state to state and may differ over the lookback period.

I agree with Alva: this is too important of a question to leave up to a global, anonymous forum with no legal experts and no accountability.

Each state has its own Medicaid rules and they can change every year.

California only has a two year look back, but most states have 5 year. There are SOOOO many complications to everything legal that I would check with an attorney.

I just found out that it is legal in many states to GIFT a child as much as 500 a month WITHOUT it affecting application for Medicaid (however you could not gift two children 500 each. 500 is the limit). Who knew. I would have thought that not legal, but in some states it is.

For just such a reason I say run this past Medicaid in your state itself or past an elder law attorney.
Good luck.