{"id":1165,"date":"2019-06-04T18:36:17","date_gmt":"2019-06-04T18:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/?p=1165"},"modified":"2019-06-04T18:36:19","modified_gmt":"2019-06-04T18:36:19","slug":"how-to-qualify-for-long-term-care-medicaid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/how-to-qualify-for-long-term-care-medicaid\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Qualify for Long-Term Care Medicaid"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>By Jessica L. Estes<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Long-term care Medicaid is a needs-based program that helps qualified\nindividuals pay for long-term care costs.&nbsp;\nLong-term\ncare is required when an individual, for a period exceeding thirty days, is\nunable to perform the basic activities of daily living such as bathing,\ndressing, eating, toileting, walking, and transferring.&nbsp; Long term care can include homecare, adult daycare, respite\ncare and assisted living or nursing home services, but long-term care Medicaid\nwill only cover nursing home services.&nbsp;\nAs such, an individual must be admitted to a nursing home or other\nlong-term care facility in order to apply for long-term care Medicaid. &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Moreover, there are three\neligibility criteria that an individual must meet to qualify for long-term care\nMedicaid: (1) technical; (2) medical; and (3) financial.&nbsp; In Maryland, to be technically eligible, an\nindividual must be (1) a resident of Maryland; (2) aged 65 or older, blind, or\ndisabled; and (3) a United States citizen or resident alien.&nbsp; For purposes of Medicaid, an individual is\nconsidered a Maryland resident from the moment they are admitted to a nursing\nhome in Maryland, even if their primary residence is located in another state\nor the District of Columbia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To be medically eligible, an\nindividual for a period exceeding thirty days, must require skilled nursing care,\nassistance with at least three activities of daily living, or assistance with\nat least two activities of daily living if the applicant also needs assistance\nwith an instrumental activity of daily living.&nbsp;\nSkilled nursing care is care or treatment that can only be done by\ndoctors or nurses such as complex wound dressings, rehabilitation, or tube\nfeeding.&nbsp; Instrumental activities of\ndaily living are not necessary for fundamental functioning but are necessary\nfor an individual to live independently in the community.&nbsp; Instrumental activities of daily living\ninclude such things as using a telephone, shopping, preparing meals,\nhousekeeping, or money management. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Most individuals in a nursing\nhome will meet the technical and medical eligibility criteria; however, the\nfinancial eligibility requirements are two-fold and most people will not immediately\nbe eligible.&nbsp; There are two tests an\nindividual must pass to be financially eligible for Medicaid: the income test\nand the asset test.&nbsp; The income test is\nsimple.&nbsp; If a person\u2019s gross monthly\nincome is less than the monthly cost of care at the facility, that person will pass\nthe income test, and because the monthly cost of care at a nursing home is so\nhigh, most do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The asset test, although simple,\nis not quite so easy to pass.&nbsp; An individual\ncannot have more than $2,500 in countable assets as of the first of the month\nin which he or she applies for benefits.&nbsp;\nAs such, most people will need to \u201cspend-down\u201d their assets below that\n$2,500 limit to be eligible for benefits.&nbsp;\nBut, be careful!&nbsp; The Medicaid\nqualification process is very complex and trying to navigate these rules alone,\nor with the assistance of a non-attorney, likely will result in wasted time,\nstress and frustration, and an unnecessarily large nursing home bill.&nbsp; Instead, seek the advice of a competent elder\nlaw attorney who will not only obtain Medicaid benefits for his or her client,\nbut preserve some, or all, of the client\u2019s assets as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Jessica L. Estes Long-term care Medicaid is a needs-based program that helps qualified individuals pay for long-term care costs.&nbsp; Long-term care is required when an individual, for a period exceeding thirty days, is unable to perform the basic activities of daily living such as bathing, dressing, eating, toileting, walking, and transferring.&nbsp; Long term care<span class=\"more-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/how-to-qualify-for-long-term-care-medicaid\/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Read More<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[101,763,127,380,132,155,765,725,256,764,337,726],"class_list":{"0":"post-1165","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-assets","9":"tag-countable-assets","10":"tag-estate-planning","11":"tag-long-term-care-planning","12":"tag-long-term-care","13":"tag-medicaid","14":"tag-medicaid-application","15":"tag-medicaid-benefits","16":"tag-medicaid-planning","17":"tag-medicaid-qualification","18":"tag-nursing-home","19":"tag-spend-down","20":"entry"},"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1165"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1166,"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165\/revisions\/1166"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}