Medicaid has different eligibility requirements for community-based long-term care services and for nursing facility care.
Community-Based Long Term Care
Community-based long-term care (Community Medicaid) covers all long-term healthcare services except nursing home care. Services covered include adult day healthcare, assisted living programs and home healthcare services. Nursing home services are not included. To apply for community-based long-term care, you must document all of your current financial resources and income. Your past financial history is of no concern to Medicaid. Therefore, you can restructure your finances and become eligible for Medicaid without penalty. You can become eligible for Community Medicaid immediately.
Nursing Home Care
Because the costs of nursing home care are significantly higher than the costs of homecare, Medicaid has much stricter eligibility requirements for nursing home care than for community-based care. When you apply for nursing home care, Medicaid will look back at your financial history over the past five years. Every $10,000 you transferred during that five-year period disqualifies you from Medicaid nursing home coverage for one month. If you transferred $50,000 during the past five years, for instance, you would be disqualified for five months, and so on. Even in the event that a patient requires nursing home care, there are strategies, which may enable him or her to retain a significant portion of their financial resources. When planning for long-term care it is essential to keep in mind the possibility that the patient may need to be admitted to a nursing home at some point.
