When a person goes into a nursing home, the spouse who stays at home is often concerned about financial security. There is a common misconception that the state will take away the home or otherwise impoverish the spouse. Although Medicaid rules are complicated, here are some basics about how Medicaid treats married couples.

If the couple owns a home worth less than $500,000, as long as the community spouse continues to live in the home, Medicaid will not count it as an asset. In addition, during the first year the institutional spouse is in the nursing home, he or she can sign the house over to the community spouse. The community spouse is then free to sell the home and keep all of the proceeds without affecting Medicaid.

Medicaid will look at all of the couple's other assets as of the day the spouse entered into the nursing home. The total amount of countable assets (a technical term we don't have room to address in this article) is used to determine how much money must be spent down before one of them can qualify for Medicaid. Generally, the community spouse gets to keep half and the institutional spouse can keep up to $2,000. However, if half is less than $25,000, the community spouse is allowed to keep up to $25,000.

The following example will hopefully help. Bob goes into the nursing home in August. His wife, Sue, remains at home. In August, they owned a house worth $100,000 and had $30,000 in savings. Because Sue is still living in the home, Medicaid will disregard that asset. Dividing their savings, half is less than $25,000, so Sue is allowed to keep $25,000 (the minimum). Bob can keep $2,000, so they only have to spend down $3,000 to qualify him for Medicaid.

Medicaid can be tricky, but we are here to help. If you have questions, contact us at info@senior-law.org or call us at (405) 528-0858.