Does medicaid pay for nursing home expenses?

Assets that don't count in the eligibility equation include a home if used as your primary residence, a car and some types of trusts. In other words, if you still live at home but your

spouse needs regular custodial care, states will not include your house and car in their estimate of assets. Planning with an elder law attorney can help with the rest. "Elder law

attorneys can help you look at how much you have now, and how much you can have to qualify for Medicaid, and help you figure out how to get from point A to point B,” NAELA President Jennifer

VanderVeen says. “Particularly with regard to couples, it makes no sense for one spouse to become impoverished when there are planning techniques available to protect assets and allow the

[other] spouse to keep more assets than the basic guidelines allow for." FIVE-YEAR ‘LOOK BACK’ COULD HURT A common misconception is that the person who needs care should give away

assets. To prevent abuse of the Medicaid program, almost all states have established a five-year “look-back period” to determine eligibility. People who are found to have given away assets

or sold them for less than market value during the five-year period preceding their Medicaid application will have an extended waiting period before they are eligible for coverage. "The

biggest mistake I see is people doing things like deeding their home to their children because someone at church told them that's what they had to do to protect it. In fact, it creates

a host of other problems, including tax liability for your children,” VanderVeen says. Medicaid has approved some ways to reduce assets. These include paying off debt, making modifications

to the home, prepaying funeral expenses and purchasing a car. To find out what's permissible in your state, talk to an elder law attorney; you can search for one with the National

Academy of Elder Law Attorneys’ Find a Lawyer database. You can do quite a bit of planning even at the last minute in most states, VanderVeen says. One option is to pay the nursing home

costs for a certain amount of time until savings and other assets are reduced sufficiently for your loved one to qualify for Medicaid. The care recipient may choose to make gifts during the

look-back period knowing that Medicaid eligibility will be delayed. Legislative protections prohibit discrimination against a nursing-home resident who transitions from private pay to

Medicaid, Parker says. "The best way to prepare is to have good estate-planning documents, good powers of attorney and organized financial records so the person with power of attorney

can find the information they need,” VanderVeen says. _This article was originally published Oct. 24, 2019. It has been updated with more recent information on Medicaid enrollment and

spending._ _Jennifer J. Salopek has been a freelance writer for 19 years. Her health care pieces have appeared in major outlets including The Washington Post. Follow her on Twitter

@jsalopek._