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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My MIL is in a nursing home paid for by Medicaid. The requirements for Medicaid vary by state and I am not sure how they would determine residency for your dad, but they may go by the state of the nursing home he is in, since he would be living in the nursing home.

In Virginia, where my MIL is, the eligibility criteria are a maximum income that is 300% of the SSI amount for an individual (which would equal about $2700/month in 2023) and no more than $2000 in assets. So if your dad’s pension + social security puts him above $2700/month, I am not sure if Medicaid becomes an option.

In my MIL’s case, she met the income requirement (only social security, no pension) and had about $20k in assets when she had a hospital stay that led to nursing home care. We put some of that into a funeral trust, which is an allowable way to spend down assets, and then paid for the nursing home privately out of her funds until she was below the $2000 line. In the month we applied, we paid the nursing home less than the monthly cost until she was below $2000 and they were able to get the rest from Medicaid. So when your parent’s assets are high, that is what you do—you private pay until they qualify for Medicaid, and possibly talk to a lawyer about how to protect some of their assets if there are a lot. We did not talk to a lawyer because my MIL did not have much, and the funeral trust took care of nearly all of it.[/quote]

This is excellent information.  We are in a similar situation.  We moved my mom into memory care last year, private pay using her own funds.  Once her savings is exhausted (which will be in about one year), she'll be left with about $1200 per month in Social Security plus about $500 per month pension, for a total of about $1700 per month which puts her well below the $2700 threshold, so at that point she will qualify for Medicaid.  The facility she is in accepts Medicaid so she should be able to stay there.  I have an excellent eldercare lawyer who helped us with her durable POA, advance medical directive, and HIPAA documents - he can help with the Medicaid application process, but her finances are so simple and minimal that we may be able to just do it on our own.  She has no spouse, no car, no real estate, no other real assets.[/quote]

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