Who Pays for the Nursing Home While Waiting for Medicaid Approval?
After every attempt has been made to allow your elderly loved one to live in their own home, it is time to transition them into an assisted living facility. You will need to apply to Medicaid to get the funding you need to pay for assisted living, and that could be a problem if you have given no thought to paying for assisted living in the past. The decisions you have made in previous years could come back as you try to determine who pays for the nursing home while the Medicaid application is being considered.
The Medicaid Application Process
When you apply for Medicaid, the first thing Medicaid will do is review the applicant’s assets from the previous five years starting with the application date. If the applicant gave their home away to their children a year ago, then that is going to delay Medicaid approval. Any misappropriation of wealth and assets in the previous five years is going to delay Medicaid approval.
You can avoid these kinds of issues by utilizing non-crisis Medicaid planning services from elder law professionals in your area. There are ways to protect your assets from Medicaid, but you have to start the process as soon as possible to be able to save the assets you want to save.
Liquid Assets
If the Medicaid applicant has a pension and a savings account, then Medicaid is going to delay approval while those assets are being used to pay for assisted living. If the applicant planned ahead and bought long-term care insurance, then they might not need Medicaid at all. But if there are assets that can immediately be used for paying assisted living expenses, then Medicaid will insist that those assets be used before Medicaid starts to pay for anything.
Paying The Bills
Medicaid is not designed to pay all of the expenses for a person in assisted living. In some situations, where the applicant has an income that falls below a certain level, Medicaid will cover most and possibly all of the expenses. But Medicaid is designed to work in conjunction with the retirement income and assets of the applicant to provide the best possible assisted living experience available.
If approval of a Medicaid application is delayed because of Medicaid penalties, then the applicant or their family will have to pay the nursing home bills. In most cases, Medicaid will set up the account to start paying assisted living expenses once the applicant’s assets have completely run out. If you have questions about your Medicaid application or want the help of an attorney to get your application through, then we encourage you to contact one of our Medicaid Planning lawyers. We will explain the entire Medicaid application process to you and our legal team will help you to put your application together in preparation for your assisted living needs.