My mom was in nursing home while we were in the process of getting her qualified for Medicaid (9 months) in that time she passed away. Who is liable for the remaining bills?

Absolutely see a lawyer. My mom signed for her BF as POA, but lawyer said POA ends at death, so mom wasn’t liable. If your mom still had assets, then yes, the payment will come out of her assets. Were the joint accounts funded with mom’s money? Daughter shouldn’t be forced to pay out of daughter ‘s own money for the NH. Please see a lawyer.

If whomever placed her into the NH signed off on the paperwork to be financially responsible, then yes a NH will seek payment from them. If this is part of a NH chain, they will have a debt collection company they turn it over to and they can be quite aggressive.

Now if the now deceased mom was the only person who signed off on all the paperwork then whatever bills would now be a debt of her estate and unfortunately her estate has no assets so too bad, so sad for those debt collectors. Although they will seek out to try to affix the debt onto family members if they can.

Medicaid does not take funds belonging to non-applicants. That just does NOT happen; in my experience Medicaid is really good at reviewing income & assets. If Medicaid did take from “in 3 kids names”, my guess is that these bank accounts funds were commingled so ownership gets viewed as being able to be considered available to all on the account….. so mom was over resourced for LTC Medicaid income & asset limits. She got denied.

By commingled, it would be like if a Sister had her paycheck going into an account that mom was a co-owner on so all that $ could be viewed as moms resource unless you are able to clearly show Sissys work / tax details to pull the $ out. Not really a DIY for most of us to deal with. It’s needs LTC savvy Medicaid elder law atty to shepherd the application. or a State n & his mom shared a savings account with both their social security numbers attached to it as co-owners, not as she only as a signatory on it.

If the daughter signed admitting papers saying she would be responsible for any costs, then yes she owes the NH. And if so, I may get a lawyer to help bring down the amount owed. Average NH charges 10k in my area but Medicaid only paid 2k a month for Mom's care. Her SS and pension were only 1700. So the NH only received 3700 a month.

If she signed nothing, other than being the contact person, she nor any of her siblings owe anything. If there is no money left, there is no estate. If she had a home, thats an asset and needs to be sold to pay the NH.

It does not matter if bank accounts have joint owners (other than spouse) or a Will, when a person is asking the government to pay for nursing care their assets need to be spent before the government will step in. Wills are just in case u die before u spend ur money. If Mom wanted her bank access set up so certain people got them, then they should have been done as beneficiaries.

It depends. If daughter was gifted or helped herself to mom’s money which in turn caused Medicaid to be denied, then yes , the NH can bill and sue her if necessary to recover the lost revenue. If daughter did not take any money, but signed admission documents at the NH in her name, then likely she signed that she would be financially responsible for mother’s bills as well. In that case, the NH can go after her as well. NH’s have been known to try to go after family members and even friends even if the above didn’t occur . My advice would be to tell her to try and fight them, she needs to make sure she goes to court if it gets that far, and argues her case. A lawyer would be helpful if the cost to hire one is small relative to the amount the NH is looking for.

Her bills are due out of what saving she had, unfortunately. If she left money in any accounts then that goes to pay her bills. She didn't qualify yet for Medicaid so the government will not pay her bills.
If she had no money left at her death, then return bills "Deceased; left no estate". No one else has to pay her bills.
Her money went to pay for her care, which is what we save our money for, to pay the bills for our care at the end of our life.
If there is no estate beyond a certain amount probate doesn't even have to be filed. So check the laws of your own state.
So very sorry for your loss and am wishing you the best.

Others here have experience with this, but you’re not liable unless you signed documents accepting responsibility. When using a POA, one keeps the responsibility on the elder by signing “patient name by Sandy Smith as POA.” Never sign with just your name.