During the Medicaid 5-year look-back period, I know they review your bank statements, but do they review your credit card statements too?

Do you pay credit cards by check?

The statement will show the Credit card payment. IMO, there is no reason they need to know how someone spent their money. I only save receipts to match to my statements unless a large purchase. Not even sure if I was asked to provide a Credit card statement. Mom didn't have a CC.

Medicaid is looking for large withdrawls. That you may need to prove. Not gifting can be done in that 5 yr lookback. Even id IRS allows it. There will be a penalty.

In my MIL's experience with Medicaid application in MN, the only debt they care about is medical debt. This was the initial application in which they do not at first go back more than the most recent bank statement. They care about your owned assets. They care whether you are gifting your cash or assets to people. They ask whether you own your home or car or properties, etc. She was never asked to provide credit card statements at that point, only medical bills that were incurred in the 3 months prior to applying for Medicaid. We had to provide the actual invoices as proof. In the basic initial application they didn't ask for cc statements BUT I think if they see something "fishy" in bank or investment statements then they will dig deeper, back 5 years max if that is the state rule. Medicaid rules are unique to each state, and my MIL's experience is in MN, back in 2016. If you go to the social services offices they should have a hard copy of the application for you to take. I would get 2, 1 is your "scratch" form and one can be your final form for submission.

They very well could take a look at credit card statements - especially if someone is taking care of her in their home or her home.

Simply to make sure that all of the expenditures on credit cards in her name are only for her benefit and that she is not using the card to gift (or conversely that someone is not using her card to make purchases for themselves and having her to pay the bill (which can also be considered gifting, or worse, if she is not aware of the charges, credit card fraud or identity fraud potentially or even elder financial abuse)

It is best to make sure that ALL financials are clean and free from anything that can look like gifting.

If Medicaid want bank statements, they will also question the bank transfer that pays the credit card bill. That will mean providing the credit card statement. Don’t assume that you can get around the system through a credit card. The chances are that you can’t. In fact Medicaid would be totally stupid to let this cheat work.

The bank statements may lead them to ask questions about specific credit card statements.

Since they are looking for large gifts, you can prepare by being able to show that a typical bill includes expected amounts for utilities, groceries, drug stores, etc.

Be ready to provide documentation for any unusually high statement to show it was for a necessary expense, not a set of cash advances from the casino to give away $5,000.