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When my mother had to go into a nursing home, she was renting an apartment. Of course she couldn’t keep the apartment and had to rent a storage unit for her to keep all her stuff. She told me she was going to pay for it, and wrote me a check to put into a bank acct in my name, so I could pay the monthly bill. The contract for the storage unit is in my name, since she was in the nursing home. Will this be questioned and make her ineligible for Medicaid? How are you supposed to know this stuff will happen?

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Pay the storage unit the full amount, on the bottom of your check write that it is for moms storage unit and it was a pass thru check. This shows she gave you the money for her needs and you used the money to pay for her needs.


Show on your bookkeeping that it was a pass through check, this happens all the time, you don't want to have to pay taxes on that money either, so document it and get it paid out.

Your mom will have to self pay until she meets the Medicaid requirements. Medicaid only kicks in when you are broke, as it should be, it is not so people can save their money to pass on, it is so people can get the care they require.

You say bills, she won't have any money to pay for anything beyond her board and care and a small amount for hair cuts, etc. AZ it is 120.00 monthly for personal needs and that is all it can be used for, NEEDS. You will need to start liquidating her things or you will be liable for the payments or things will be cancelled or repossessed.

Look at it this way, you now have 12 months to clear the storage unit. Breathing room to focus on something else. She can use her money for her. She just can't gift or give anything away. Make sure that you don't do any more checks to you and pay the money towards its intended purpose and you should be fine. Don't prepay any other bills that won't be considered a need, error on the side of caution from here forward.

Start keeping records now, all receipts, just anything that pertains to your mom.

I know this is scary and hard, especially when you are doing it alone. It will get sorted out and be calmed down, keep the faith. You can do this.
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If a Medicaid look-back caught the check she wrote to you and required an accounting for it that shouldn't be too hard to prove. It probably wasn't all that much money anyway, right? Assuming you can prove you used the money to pay for a storage facility for her items with reciepts, possibly photos, possibly testimonial from movers who took her stuff from her apartment to the storage facility etc. If you didn't keep your reciepts you can likely get statements from your bank or payment records from the storage facility. Good luck with getting things straightened out. You might want to see if the facility can add her name to the accounting just to keep things easier.
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MilaGirl0319 May 2019
The storage unit is $105 a month..first month free. She planned for 11 months of storage and wrote a check to me for $1155. It is sitting in my bank acct to pay the monthly fee. I was told they will look at it as a gift. Some gift, huh? I can just give it back to her, but then THAT’S a red flag. So if all of her income goes to the NH and the overage goes in a QIT, which the NH gets at the end of the month, how is she supposed to pay for this and other bills? I have to pay for these bills? I don’t understand this.
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Unless you have a lawyer who is advising you on the Medicaid application (which would be a good use of mom's money) I would think that perhaps redepositing the check back into her account and writing a check from HER account for the year of storage would e a good idea.

I am NOT a lawyer.
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We are in Ohio
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Are you able to go ahead and pay for the 11 months of storage in full and then hold onto the receipt?
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MilaGirl0319 May 2019
I’m not sure, but I can certainly find out
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Is your mother currently private pay?

Are you assuming that mom has moved to the NH permanently? Why store things she's not going to use?

What other bills does she have?
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MilaGirl0319 May 2019
Right now her insurance is paying, the co-pay kicks in Friday, and we’ve applied for Medicaid. If we have to pay, she can, but only for a very short time as her $ is limited. She is going to be staying as she requires 24/7 care due to dementia and COPD. With everything that is going on, we have less than 30 days to vacate her apartment, and a lot of items we discarded, but there’s personal items that have to be stored somewhere and right now I don’t have time to sort through it all. I work full time and I’m doing this alone as my brother lives out of town.
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