The Medicaid application requires 5 years worth of bank statements. That’s going to be hundreds of pages of paper. How do I do that?

In our state (Maine) the Medicaid application required us to submit one monthly statement per year for 4 years (in this case it was for March, the month of the application) and then 12 monthly statements for the fifth (current) year. My husband was POA for his brother and I helped with a lot of the paperwork. We were very lucky because there were paper monthly statements for almost the whole time period, though there was a lot of sorting and organizing we had to do because brother in law was a pack rat and his house was a mess. Online access allowed us to get any statements we were missing. We also had to provide details for any closed bank accounts, including CDs, for the previous 5 years and how they had been disposed of. For example, CD in the amount of XXX at YYY bank, deposited to checking at ZZZ bank and used for household expenses (or nursing home bills, later in the 5-year period. It took over 3 years to spend down once my brother in law was in care, so as you can imagine there was a fair amount of $$ moving from various types of accounts into checking to pay for care. He had to cash in his retirement IRA, sell house, etc.)

You tell the caseworker what the bank said. The caseworker needs to request them.

I was lucky, my Mom kept her bankstatements for 5 years. Then the caseworker only took 4 a year from that pile. I too keep 5 yrs back.

If you have an online account at the bank, you can generally download copies of bank statements directly from there. Of course, they may not go back 5 years, but at least you won't have to pay for 5 entire years.

If you don't have an online account, set one up. I set up an online account for my mom's checking account, and it made things so much easier.

If more than 1 bank, ask your caseworker if this can work:
Jan 2019 & Dec 2019 End of Month statements
Jan 2020 & Dec 2020 EOM
Jan 2021 & Dec 2021 EOM
Jan 2022 & Dec 2022 EOM
all of 2023, all of 2024 in including this month for every account. Medicaid will have basically last 15 months in detail.

fwiw for my mom she had CDs and TBills, so timed deposits. One item that was also required by Medicaid was an on bank letterhead done by bank officer letter as to the disposition on all timed deposits as to where they went to upon close out/non renewal. Took better part of a morning at the bank. So for example CD #98765 balance $5,432.00 expired 1/23/17 deposit into checking account # 6564 on 1/23/17 for $5432.00. All of hers went in full in to her drawing account, matching up completely. I am 100&1% convinced that if all the $ did not go in full to her checking account a she / I would have had to deal with transfer inquiry. Apparently close out on timed deposits often fall off the radar but the caseworker can follow it back due to IRS reported interest.

If you are a signatory on all the account and have yourself an account at the banks, I think you’ll get better traction doing your request for old items. It might not help you, but for anyone reading this, it’s imho something for POA to consider once your folks get more up in age.