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After several months of waiting, and a large nursing home bill, my mother was denied Medicaid to cover it. What do we do now? We can't afford the bill and the monthly cost. Her income is a few hundred over the limit. She has Alzheimer's and cannot live alone nor with a family member as none of us has a home that is safe, she falls, and we work.
We are at our wits end.

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I think you mean Medicare? I recommend going to current NH director and see if they can keep her in a bed there. You will have to liquidate her assets, savings, retirement, investments, property, etc. you will use that to pay monthly fee and once that is exhausted, she stays in same NH and then Medicaid/medicare(?) takes over.

Other options maybe to find in home care (but hourly that can be even more expensive), live in skilled care.

Also check with your local senior resource center and see if they can help you find affordable care or placement.

Would she qualify for VA benefits? Served or spouse served in military?

I'm thinking they can't kick her out of current care unit and just have to switch her to Medicaid status provided she no longer has assets to cover costs.

Good luck to you. Keep checking here as others may have additional first hand experience with this situation.
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Loving - is your situation that mom has SS & a retirement &/ or annuity & between them, she exceeds whatever is your state's maximum for monthly "income"?

So no matter what she does, every month she automatically makes too much money to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to private pay for the NH in full?

If this is her situation & qualifies for Medicaid in every other way (she has spent down her savings, cashed in life insurance policy, etc) and has her "assets" at whatever her state has set as their ceiling......then she can set up a Miller Trust to deal with the excess "income" she gets and therefore her "income" will be under her state's Medicaid limit for income. Miller is also known as a QUALIFIED INCOME TRUST or an INCOME CAP TRUST.

This is in a nutshell how Miller works: say mom get's $ 800 a month in SS, and then also get's retirement from late DH of $ 1,500 & then get's $ 500 a month from her retirement. The amounts are set, established, guaranteed - $ 2,800 a month.
(It is important that the income is guaranteed or "qualified" for Miller to work.) Which could be just fine for her to live on when she was well and capable, but the $ 2,800 is NOT enough to pay for the NH @ $ 7,500 a month. What mom can do is get an elder care attorney to set up a Miller Trust, What Miller does is place whatever is the excess income each & every month into a trust in which the state or the state's Medicaid program is the beneficiary. So if her state has her income ceiling at $ 2,094.00 (which is TX limit), then each month $ 706.00 get's diverted to the trust. Presto surprise mom's income is now OK for Medicaid. Miller is totally legit and done all the time. You can Google it's history. It does need to be done by an experienced elder law attorney so that it is flexible and adaptable to changes in income over time without having to redo the paperwork and however your state has decided to run it's Medicaid program. So if SS changes the payout rate by 1.25%, Miller adjusts for that. It is - in my opinion - not a DIY project. Remember that all the excess income that builds up by Miller becomes the property of the state upon her death - none of it goes to family.

Miller is done all the time especially for those that have railroad retirement as RR pays really, really well but not enough to pay for a NH in full. Look into it to see if this could solve your problem. Good luck!
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Igloo572 - I will check into this, it sounds very promising. Thanks so much! Good information. I have a lawyer and will ask about this.
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FYI, it is a misconception that Medicare pays for nursing home care, it pays for most of rehab in a nursing home but once a person becomes long term care, it does not pay.
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