Hello.
It is nearing the time of my mother's death and I just found out my brother did not set up a prepaid funeral - I thought he did. There is some extra money in my mom's account-can I take that money out? For example, she will not need to pay her monthly medical insurance for June. Can I use that money to quickly pre-pay for the funeral. She is on MLTSs Mediciad.
If they reimburse, do I pay for the funeral first out of her account? Not a stimulus money. I am not sure why there is extra money ( not a lot).We are looking at basic cremation- not a lot of money. I assume we cannot use her bank account after she passes.
What should we do? I do not want to rip off Medicaid just wondering what is allowed. If that makes sense? We really do not have any extra money to pay for this. Does Medicaid come after leftover money in your bank account? Please advise. Thank you!
Buying a prepaid funeral will not work now. That is usually done to spenddown Moms money for Medicaid. You do not gain anything doing it now.
The money in Moms Personal Needs Acct with the NH goes to Moms estate, as does the money left after spend down. These can be used for her funeral. You may only be able to cremate her. But check with Medicaid first.
I would think a funeral home would wait for payment. Your not the only person that needs to get the money. Insurance companies don't pay out overnight.
NH may have their own rules as to withdrawals. Like my moms first NH had it only weekdays and limited hours and limit on maximum withdrawn as it was cash. But my moms 2nd Nh had it available during all business office hours but too limited if it was in cash . I don’t remember the exact amount but it was modest. It’s a good idea as they don’t want residents w dementia coming and getting a roll of $$$$. If you wanted to do a big withdrawal- like they were at the 2k maximum for LTC Medicaid & you want to empty it - you put a request in and they would do a check to you in a couple of days. Both NH had a ledger for $ moves for the in-house Trust account and you put your signature and reason for withdrawals. Similar to the old school system used for going into a safe deposit box.
I’d suggest that you call the business office to see if your a signature or if it needs to be mom that obstensibly takes $ out of it. To make this easier, you could ask the preneed Fah guys to give you an estimate and you have the NH do the trust account $ as a check made out to the FH.
This way no “gifting” issues.
If she’s current on her billing, the folks in the office I’ve found to be quite helpful. Plus if she has a preneed, it makes things smoother for the NH when she dies as they know who to contact. Actually I’m surprised that the Nh didn’t require info on who would be handling your moms passing.