The Basics of Medicaid
"What You Can and Cannot Keep"

In order to understand Medicaid qualification, you first need to know how Medicaid treats your assets.

Basically, Medicaid breaks your assets down into two separate categories. The first are those assets which are exempt and the second are those assets which are non-exempt or countable.

Exempt assets are those which Medicaid will not take into account (at least for the time being). Generally the following assets are exempt:

• The home, no matter its value. The home must be the principal place of residence. The nursing home resident may be required to show some "intent to return home," even if this never actually takes place.
• Household and personal belongings, such as furniture, appliances, jewelry and clothing.
• One vehicle, there may be some limitation on value.
• Prepaid funeral plans and burial plots.
• Cash value of life insurance policies, as long as the face value of all policies added together does not exceed $5,000. If it does exceed $5,000 in total face amount, then the cash value in these policies is countable. Also, term life insurance is exempt.
• Cash (e.g. a small checking or savings account) not to exceed $2,000 in GA.
  These are basically the assets which Medicaid will ignore, at least for now. Keep in mind, however, that the estate recovery unit may come back to recoup payments made to a Medicaid recipient after the death of the recipient and the recipient's spouse if they are married.
• All other assets which are not exempt (i.e. the ones not listed earlier) are countable. This includes checking accounts, savings accounts, certificates of deposit, money market accounts, stocks, mutual funds, bonds, IRAs, pensions, second cars and so on.

While there are some minor exceptions to these rules, for the most part, all money and property, as well as any item that can be valued and turned into cash is a countable asset, unless it is one of those listed earlier as exempt.

While the Medicaid rules themselves are complicated and somewhat tricky, for a single person it's safe to say that you will qualify for Medicaid so long as you have only exempt assets plus a small amount of cash, (i.e. $2,000).

For a married couple the community spouse (i.e., the one not needing nursing home care) can generally keep assets up to a maximum of $92,760. Of course, this does not mean there are not things which can be done to protect assets beyond these levels. (See, for example,previous Elder Law Today issues). Instead, this issue of Elder Law Today is designed to review the basics in a way which a caseworker from the Department of Health & Welfare would review your assets.

The Law Office of Robert P. Copeland Attorney for Estate and Medicaid Planning

1827 Powers Ferry Road, Building 11, Suite 100 Atlanta, GA 30339

Serving Cobb County, Fulton County,
Cherokee County, DeKalb County

Phone #: 770-937-9444

Email: bob.copeland@mac.com
Web: www.copelandelderlaw.com

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~Medicaid planning and Medicaid crisis planning
~Asset protection from the high cost of nursing home care
~Medicaid qualification, Medicaid applications, attendance at the ~Medicaid appointment
~Nursing home planning
~Estate planning, including wills, trusts and tax planning services
~Probating an estate; Estate and ~Trust Administration
~Guardianships & Conservatorships for incapacitated adults
~Preparation of Living Wills, Powers of Attorney, Health Care Surrogates, and Preneed Guardians
~Planning for Disability & Incapacity
~Special Needs Trusts for disabled children and grandchildren
~Prenuptial and Postnuptial agreements
~Review of existing estate plans