My mother is in a NH and is currintly on Medicaid. My mother has dementia and osteoporsis and most likely will never come back home as she can no longer stand up by herself. My father has dementia, probably Alzheimers, and is living at home. I have an in-home care service coming to his house to make him breakfast and dinner and do housework, transportation, companionship, etc. He has about $70,000.00. I am his legal guardian and conservator. My parent's house was retitled in me and my brother's name in 2004. My parent's set up a trust in 2010 which has about $90,000. in it. My parent's have given over $40,000. to my brother in the last 5 years. My father's money is slowly declining due to the in-home care he needs. The in-home care service does not have a Medicaid contract and I want to know at what point I should start looking for a service that works with Medicaid? Also, will Medicaid try to get the money back that my parent's gave to my brother? Unfortunately, my parent's were not compentent when they gave him this money, so will Medicaid still penalize my father or will they try to get their money back from my brother? We are in Colorado, so does anyone know how Medicaid works here?
#2, start now trying to get that money back from your brother. Medicaid is going to look at that $40K as a gift of assets -- which it was. They will penalize your dad X number of months of Medicaid assistance to get that back. That was a BAD mistake.
I agree with Carol and Jeannegibbs. There's a lot going on there financially. Medicaid is state-specific and applicant-specific. In the most basic of cases someone should have assistance in navigating through Medicaid like a case worker or a social worker but when there's $160k involved, a house, and questionable financial gifts a lawyer needs to be consulted.
Good luck,
Carol