MYLOGO
Medicaid Application
Medicaid Application & Medicaid Fair Hearing
CNY Law Firm serving Oneida, Rome, Syracuse, Utica, Chittenango, New Hartford, Whitesboro, Lowville and surrounding areas
Medicaid Application
The complex Medicaid laws are constantly changing. Court interpretations sometimes change the meaning of the Medicaid laws. The Medicaid application is made up of long and convoluted forms, which among other things, require very specific documentation of income and assets, historical back up in the form of account records and tax returns for several years, appraisals, etc.
Incomplete Medicaid applications will be rejected if not fully corrected within a short time. When that happens, Medicaid benefits are not authorized and the start of any potential penalty period is delayed while you are compelled to pay for your care. Given the average cost of nursing home care in Central New York, a one month delay in approval of a Medicaid application can cost about Ten Thousand Dollars.
One of the purposes of the Medicaid application is to identify assets that must be liquidated to pay for your care, and another purpose is to identify assets which were transferred during the sixty months prior to the month of the Medicaid application, so that you may be determined to be ineligible for Medicaid.
Practice Areas
Medicaid will not tell you how to protect assets that you have worked throughout your life to develop and that you plan to give or pass on to your children, grandchildren or other beneficiaries. It is the goal of the Medicaid application process to compel you to spend down all but a few exempt assets prior to becoming eligible for Medicaid benefits.
It is possible, through Medicaid Crisis Planning, to properly use provisions in the Medicaid laws to transfer a substantial share of your assets to your loved ones, and to establish a viable plan for payment for your care during the applicable penalty period while waiting to qualify for Medicaid benefits.
If you should need long term nursing home care, Medicaid Planning attorney Michel J. DeBottis
can offer various options to help you protect your assets. We can help you apply for Medicaid, and handle all of the legal correspondence with the Medicaid office in your county. In proper circumstances, we can use Medicaid Crisis Planning
to preserve assets for your family members or other intended beneficiaries.
Medicaid Fair Hearing
At a Medicaid “Fair Hearing,” it is possible to challenge an adverse Medicaid decision, such as a rejection of your Medicaid application or the imposition of an improper penalty period. For example, your Medicaid application may be denied or a penalty period imposed because, within the past five years, you gave large sums of money to family members. At a Fair Hearing before an Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”), upon the presentation of appropriate evidence the ALJ may determine that though you have engaged in a pattern of gifting over a long period of time, such as helping pay for grandchildren’s college expenses. Such gifting does not disqualify you from being eligible for Medicaid because the gifts were made for purposes other than to qualify for Medicaid. If it is determined that you have transferred resources and assets for purposes other than to qualify for Medicaid, the ALJ can undo the rejection of your Medicaid application or the imposition of an improper penalty period.