If mother gave a gift or money to son, why would facility hold that against her?

Medicaid will use a certain formula when calculating a penalty. A gift given 4 years before applying will not be penalized as much as one given the day before applying. The penalty for gifting gets smaller as time goes by, then vanishes at 5 years (when the look-back period is 5 years). I do not have the formulae the states use, but a gift given a while back -- say, 4 years -- will not be very large compared to the size of the gift.

Walter, it is not the facility's fault. It is a Medicaid rule, no gifting 5 years prior to the application date.

A facility would not hold that against your mother. I'm assuming what they are telling you is if you must apply for Medicaid to pay for your mothers care, they will not hold it against your mother, but they certainly will not say she's eligible for Mediciad. As others have said, they do a 5 year look back and will then check if any monies have been given away.
Then, they will not refuse to pay for care, but she will have to wait the amount of time it would have taken o use that money to pay for her own care. For instance, if she gave away $5,000 and her care if $4,000 per month, then it would be about 6 weeks before they would start paying for her care. Not as bad as it sounds when you understand it that way.
Also remember, if she owns a house, Mediciad will place a lien on it after she dies and recoup their money when the house is sold.
Hope this helps...

This only applies if a government agency is involved, and it is the agency, not the facility, that would care.

If your mother has enough assets to pay her own way in assisted living, no problem. She can do whatever she wants with her "extra" money. If she is going to need to apply for Medicaid, then she needs to follow the Medicaid guidelines.

Nope, sorry, it's under Money and Legal!

Walter, is this YOUR mother we're talking about? If it is, you need to gain a better understanding of how gifting of monies will impact her ability to pay for care.

Click on the Elder Care tab at the top and read " paying for care". It should explain a lot.

walter, you must be talking about if she needs to file for Medicaid. Medicaid will check the financial records of a person and large transfers of cash will be questioned. This is to prevent people from gifting all their money to family, then applying for the government to pay for their care. There is a 5-year look-back period when someone applies for Medicaid. A facility will not be concerned if someone gave their family a gift, but Medicaid will play close attention to where the money went when a person applies.