I have given quite a few seminars over the past five years on estate planning and have answered many, many questions. I have also helped many clients and provided all the information I can so those clients can make a knowledgeable decision regarding their estate plan. So, I want to spend the next few posts going over questions I run into with estate planning to help spread more knowledge to the people of Altus and the surrounding areas of southwest Oklahoma (and the world).

Common Question: (This is tied into the last post, but focuses more on the Elderlaw side.) My mom is getting advanced dementia and we think we will have to put her in a nursing home. She doesn’t have a lot of things, but we heard she will qualify for Medicaid if she has less than $2,000 in assets. We also know, because we heard it at the coffee shop, that she could give each of us kids and the grandkids $10,000 a year. If she does that, she would be below $2,000 and would get government assistance, right?

Short (very, very short) Answer: There are misconceptions with this answer the same as in the previous column; namely, you are trying to combine two very distinct areas of law into one simplified version.

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When someone is applying for Medicaid, they have to meet three qualifications: 1. Have a medical need, 2. Meet income limitations, and 3. Meet resource limitations. In order to prevent someone from immediately qualifying, the 2005 Deficit Reduction Act (DRA) imposed a 60 month look-back period for any transfer given without adequate consideration. If there is transfer without adequate consideration during the 60 months prior to application for Medicaid, then the government imposes a delay based on the amount given away (for OK currently one day without assistance for every $134.50 transferred).

Under this look-back rule, Mom would lose about two months of nursing home assistance for every $8,000 given away and it would be up to her or the donees to pay for that assistance, if needed. In a nutshell, the divisions that administer Medicaid do not care that the IRS give a tax break for gifts, because they are only concerned about ensuring proper applicants for Medicaid get qualified.