In most states there are laws on the books that make the children financially responsible. While it is rare for those laws to be enforced...they are enforceable. A couple years back Pennsylvania sued a man for his mother's nursing home bill...and the court ordered him to pay it!
Some states even have criminal penalties for children that do no live up to the fealty responsibilities defined in the law.
If the GOP passes their excuse for a health care bill...our parents and grandparents in nursing homes are going to lose Medicaid ... bet those states start to come in earnest for the children to pay
The nursing home will want to be paid from the estate as it is settled. The children would NOT be responsible for the bill in most cases. IF someone signed her in and signed the form for financial responsibility, they might have a problem.
Someone in the family should try to have the application finalized. If mom died with a will, then whomever was named as the executor as per the will, would be the one. Even if probate never gets opened. As it shows mom's intent for who was to take care of any issues post death. Otherwise it should be whomever in the family - likely the DPOA - who did the Medicaid application and her NH admissions paperwork.
For my MIL, she too died before being approved for Medicaid. She had no assets or property, so no probate was opened. But my BIL dogged getting her application done and Medicaid was approved almost a year later. She was Medicaid pending about 5 months and then had a couple of hospitalization stays and then the last one discharged to an in-unit hospice where she died within 3 weeks. Her application had transfer penalty inquiry issues related to her writing checks to caregivers for smallish amounts (under $100) so they could go and buy her liquor. The NH sent BIL and the brothers (my hubs & another BIL) bills for the full 5 months at private pay rates too. And they did "we're turning it over to collections….. getting an atty to sue for the $" drama. NH can collect successfully from family IF family somehow signed the admissions paperwork to indicate they would be responsible OR if you all live in a filial responsibility state (although it's rare, it's still a pretty good threat).
I'd suggest you find all the paperwork when she was admitted and carefully review to see if you or others signed responsibility. If so, then you really need to do whatever to follow up the application and get her approved. 2 months is probably 15K so it's enough to interest turning it over to debt colletions.
The situation your family finds themselves in is pretty common. I think it's like half of admissions pass away within the first 6 - 8 months. Most of the time NH is essentially without any $ paid or any way to force family to pay unless family unwittingly signed responsibility. My mom's admission paperwork was about 2 dz pages and I made sure every single signature was clearly done in my limited capacity as DPOA. Otherwise the NH would have done whatever they could to have been held me responsible if Medicaid hadn't been approved. Good luck in all this.
Some states even have criminal penalties for children that do no live up to the fealty responsibilities defined in the law.
If the GOP passes their excuse for a health care bill...our parents and grandparents in nursing homes are going to lose Medicaid ... bet those states start to come in earnest for the children to pay
For my MIL, she too died before being approved for Medicaid. She had no assets or property, so no probate was opened. But my BIL dogged getting her application done and Medicaid was approved almost a year later. She was Medicaid pending about 5 months and then had a couple of hospitalization stays and then the last one discharged to an in-unit hospice where she died within 3 weeks. Her application had transfer penalty inquiry issues related to her writing checks to caregivers for smallish amounts (under $100) so they could go and buy her liquor. The NH sent BIL and the brothers (my hubs & another BIL) bills for the full 5 months at private pay rates too. And they did "we're turning it over to collections….. getting an atty to sue for the $" drama. NH can collect successfully from family IF family somehow signed the admissions paperwork to indicate they would be responsible OR if you all live in a filial responsibility state (although it's rare, it's still a pretty good threat).
I'd suggest you find all the paperwork when she was admitted and carefully review to see if you or others signed responsibility. If so, then you really need to do whatever to follow up the application and get her approved. 2 months is probably 15K so it's enough to interest turning it over to debt colletions.
The situation your family finds themselves in is pretty common. I think it's like half of admissions pass away within the first 6 - 8 months. Most of the time NH is essentially without any $ paid or any way to force family to pay unless family unwittingly signed responsibility. My mom's admission paperwork was about 2 dz pages and I made sure every single signature was clearly done in my limited capacity as DPOA. Otherwise the NH would have done whatever they could to have been held me responsible if Medicaid hadn't been approved. Good luck in all this.