How will an extra name on a property deed affect Medicare application?

Property ownership has no effect on Medicare eligibility.
But for Medicaid, property is considered an asset. Usually their home is an exempt asset for thier lifetime. Now although this sounds just terrific, the issue becomes that they have to do a co-pay (also called their SOC -share of cost) of all their monthly income less a small personal needs allowance to the facility. They basically have no -none -nada -zero $$ anymore to pay for any costs on the home. Most of the time the home is sold & the proceeds from the sale used towards their costs of care.
If family wants to have the home kept, family will need to pay all the costs on the home and then deal with probate or heirship or % of ownership issues and any MERP /estate recovery by Medicaid. It will not be simple and could have significant costs over time.

Before you start on the "what ifs", you need to get all the items attached to the property that is recorded at the courthouse. Often counties have an on-line to get all thes which you pay a very nominal fee for them & then either they get emailed as a diwn load or if their old (maybe pre 1995 or so) filings, they get pulled, copied and mailed to you. Like a Release of Deed of Trust is $ 7.00 type of cost. Try to get all the paperwork to see exactly how it was titled, etc. And then seek who've legal is needed to safeguard your ownership.

Also in most states AL is private pay. So ckearly find out what Medicaid is anticipated to pay for or not pay fir.

tada - if mom is going into AL & perhaps she is not going to be applying for Medicaid - so that is only stepdad who is applying for Medicaid - she could well be considered a "community spouse" for medicaid rules. CS situations are very very different in that they are themselves allowed to have assets (about 117K) over the 2K allowed for the in the NH stepdad. If this is the situation, only step dad needs to be impoverished. She can ask to get CSRA or MMNA - community spouse resource allowance or monthly maintenance needs allowance from his monthly income. I think of the CSRA MMNA as alimony for the non NH spouse. Each state sets the amount and what the program is called. Like for TX the CS is allowed up to a maximum of almost $ 2,900.00 the NH income of step dad which would otherwise need to be paid to the NH as his SOC. So say dad got 3K income but mom qualifies as a CS, so his copay could be only $ 100.00 a mon and mom gets $ 2,900 which could go towards her private paying for the AL. Comprende?

I do think that the medicaid application for a widow or widower is although document heavy is pretty straightforward….they gotta be impoverished. You or your Sis could do it if you all were involved in mom's life and knew where she would stash stuff. But for CS where 1 is not going into the NH and may need to private pay for care or need to pay to continue to live in the old house, well that is very much more complex. So much of what you read and folks experience with Medicaid (& I'm including NH staff) is all about an individual Medicaid application. CS they know little about and its nuances of how to evaluate income & assets. Personally I thin for CS you need to get an elder law attorney to come up with best options for the nonNH, nonMedicaid spouse (if mom is not going on Medicaid).

Whatever you & Sis do, do NOT ever sign your name…..it always needs to be "Linda Smith Jones in her capacity as DPOA for Mary Smith". and get a copy of every page of the admissions contract and all other paperwork. Don;t leave or give them a check till you have copies. At my mom;s first NH, I waiting almost an hr to get copies done. they were reluctance to do so but I held my ground. The admissions gal told me that I was like the second person who ever wanted all the paperwork. Family is in a rush, under stress and the move could be all emergency incident based (like from a fall or fire at the house), so family is mentally elsewhere. You need to get a copy of everything for both admissions. Good luck.

Gah!! Its been a long day, you're correct I meant Medicaid. We have our eligibilty meeting on Friday. My step-sister has the deed so i will find out Friday if my name is on it. I had completely forgotten about it until this weekend.

We're very much in emergency mode on this application, so I am hoping this glitch won't hold things up. Thanks for taking the time to answer.

Thank you so much. We were all very unprepared, for this so I am very overwhelmed. Thanks for reminding me to pay attention to those things.

If the community spouse doesn't need the nh spouse's income does any of that matter?

Deb, yes it matters, you report both incomes and assets so that Medicaid can determine eligibility. Check your state laws.

Tada check the property tax bills. If your name is on the tax bill, that's a good indicator you are on the deed.

ooh, Pam, are you serious, think kids are thinking that since this is 2nd marriage for both, that new hub's income has nothing to do with anything - you saying it will? oh my, but I guess what I was really trying to ask is about that community spouse allowance then, as in it won't really matter, like the qualification level is much higher for one of a couple than for an individual so she probably won't be disqualified because of their dual income, right?

Imho CS situations if 1 in going into a NH and the other -the CS - is staying in the community (and " community" can mean CS is staying in their home, or IL or even AL or whatever that means they are themselves are NOT applying for medicaid as well) is way, way more complex. The CS - if they are likely to live a good while longer than the NH spouse - really does not want to impoverish themselves if they can help it. They are going to need as much of their assets for those later widow or widower years. They want to & need to retain every penny as they could outlive a spouse by a decade or more. My mom outlived my dad by almost 30 years.

I do think it's really worthwhile for CS situations to meet with atty to discuss Medicaid compliant options in advance of ever applying for Medicaid.

Medicaid articles tend to focus on spend-down, getting impoverished, cashing in insurance policies, selling assets. Basically liquidating to impoverish, which is pretty straightforward to do. But doing things yo safeguard assets or re-assign assets forva CS is just more complicated. The csetting up

You should seek the assistance on an Elder Law attorney as your question raises many legal issues. An attorney can often help an individual qualify for Medicaid without spending all of their money. You can find one on this website by clicking on "Money & Legal" and then clicking on "Elder Law" where you can then search by city or zip code. If there is not one listed here, you can search for an attorney at naela which is the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys