We are trying to get Dad hooked up with medicaid to help pay for his care in a facility. Does anyone or any place help families fill out the paperwork to get the Medicaid assistance?
Julie - the facility should have given you the application & a specific list of items that NH reviews & accompanies NH bill to the state & your dad's application for Medicaid. Medicaid application should be on line too. Both NH I have dealt with for my mom had someone in admissions who could help with the actual application.
The actual Medicaid application is pretty straightforward. My mom's was about 10 pages and is a series of check off's and notifications of what Medicaid is & does. Doing the actual application took maybe an hour tops.
BUT it is all the required documentation of assets & income that is the real time consuming hurdle. The NH cannot do that as legally it has to be your dad or whomever is his DPOA is going to either just have to take the time to go through your parents files or send off letters or go on-line to insurance companies, banks, county tax assessor etc requesting the information that Medicaid (& NH) requires to evaluate your dad's application. My mom's total ran over 100 pages mainly due to her old-school life insurance policy (every single page front & back required) and the documents needed as she still had a home; but my MIL's who had been in subsidized housing so already low-income verified, so her documents ran about 40 pages. My mom's banking was for 3 years & 6 months of statements too while MIL was just the last year's. You just have to take the time to find the stuff.
For my mom, her NH's list was 1 page of items; for my MIL the list was 2 pages of items. Both were in the same state (TX) too. Yeah, this seems totally loco but each NH does their own review of the applicant's documents to determine IF they will accept them "Medicaid Pending" so the NH can have their list done to reflect what & how they do the "pending" determination. The NH do not have to take your dad in Medicaid Pending if they think there is an asset or income issue for dad's acceptance in Medicaid. So be sure to ask how they do "pending" as dad may have to do a large deposit @ private pay rate for his stay.
Right now (March) is actually a good time as if dad has any accounts that have a tax gain, then he got 1099's or dividend reports last month (Feb) as those are required by the IRS to be done by end of January. Also all retirement & SS send out all their income for last year & the statement for 2014 payments also by end of January for tax reporting & planning. So these are in the last few weeks mail. These are VERY important as NH & Medicaid have to look at these to determine Dad's co-pay (or his SOC - share of cost) that they expect him to pay the NH while his Medicaid application is reviewed. Also his income statements from last year is the first thing that is looked at as all the states have a fixed income & asset maximum that you have to be under for Medicaid (most are 2K in nonexempt assets and 2K in monthly income).
Most banks have on-line for the last year, so try that first if you can't find all the monthly statements. But really you or other family just have to take the time to ferret out all the documents on your own. Then go down to a Kinko's/Fed Ex location and make 2 sets of each & every document front & back. Good luck and keep a sense of humor in all this.
Oh also I would recommend this to be done as a "document dump" so that everything is submitted at the same time. The caseworker has maybe 10 - 15 minutes to do a level 1 evaluation so you want everything to be there for him to check off as provided otherwise it seems to go into a "documents pending" pile with a time clock of 30 days and then it gets declined. Stuff gets lost or waylaid if it's not all together and a real PIA for all. You want to make this as simple to evaluate as possible. I would suggest that one person from the family be the point person on all this too so less lags in response time.
My dad's NH also gave me a packet about what Medicaid was and how to apply and then I went to the Medicaid office to actually begin the application process. The social worker at the NH was very helpful, I would suggest you start with a social worker.
Here are some articles and questions answered found within our site that may be able to help answer your caregiving question.
https://www.agingcare.com/articles/applying-for-medicaid-155854.htm
https://www.agingcare.com/questions/how-do-I-get-medicaid-for-mom-156661.htm
Hope this helps.
Best Regards,
The AgingCare.com Team
The actual Medicaid application is pretty straightforward. My mom's was about 10 pages and is a series of check off's and notifications of what Medicaid is & does. Doing the actual application took maybe an hour tops.
BUT it is all the required documentation of assets & income that is the real time consuming hurdle. The NH cannot do that as legally it has to be your dad or whomever is his DPOA is going to either just have to take the time to go through your parents files or send off letters or go on-line to insurance companies, banks, county tax assessor etc requesting the information that Medicaid (& NH) requires to evaluate your dad's application. My mom's total ran over 100 pages mainly due to her old-school life insurance policy (every single page front & back required) and the documents needed as she still had a home; but my MIL's who had been in subsidized housing so already low-income verified, so her documents ran about 40 pages. My mom's banking was for 3 years & 6 months of statements too while MIL was just the last year's. You just have to take the time to find the stuff.
For my mom, her NH's list was 1 page of items; for my MIL the list was 2 pages of items. Both were in the same state (TX) too. Yeah, this seems totally loco but each NH does their own review of the applicant's documents to determine IF they will accept them "Medicaid Pending" so the NH can have their list done to reflect what & how they do the "pending" determination. The NH do not have to take your dad in Medicaid Pending if they think there is an asset or income issue for dad's acceptance in Medicaid. So be sure to ask how they do "pending" as dad may have to do a large deposit @ private pay rate for his stay.
Right now (March) is actually a good time as if dad has any accounts that have a tax gain, then he got 1099's or dividend reports last month (Feb) as those are required by the IRS to be done by end of January. Also all retirement & SS send out all their income for last year & the statement for 2014 payments also by end of January for tax reporting & planning. So these are in the last few weeks mail. These are VERY important as NH & Medicaid have to look at these to determine Dad's co-pay (or his SOC - share of cost) that they expect him to pay the NH while his Medicaid application is reviewed. Also his income statements from last year is the first thing that is looked at as all the states have a fixed income & asset maximum that you have to be under for Medicaid (most are 2K in nonexempt assets and 2K in monthly income).
Most banks have on-line for the last year, so try that first if you can't find all the monthly statements. But really you or other family just have to take the time to ferret out all the documents on your own. Then go down to a Kinko's/Fed Ex location and make 2 sets of each & every document front & back. Good luck and keep a sense of humor in all this.
Oh also I would recommend this to be done as a "document dump" so that everything is submitted at the same time. The caseworker has maybe 10 - 15 minutes to do a level 1 evaluation so you want everything to be there for him to check off as provided otherwise it seems to go into a "documents pending" pile with a time clock of 30 days and then it gets declined. Stuff gets lost or waylaid if it's not all together and a real PIA for all. You want to make this as simple to evaluate as possible. I would suggest that one person from the family be the point person on all this too so less lags in response time.