Mediate Michigan

Your spouse is in a nursing home. You are paying out $6,000 or more per month for his or her care. You have been told that you can only keep one half of your combined assets and have to spend down the rest on the nursing home before you can apply for Medicaid to pay for your spouse’s nursing home care.

Is there something else you can do? Absolutely.

First, we look at the exempt assets you can keep. Subject to certain limits, these include your home, prepaid funeral expenses, burial plot, one automobile and life insurance with a cash value less than $1,500.

Next we look at your countable assets. Assets that are not exempt assets are considered countable assets.

Countable assets must be “spent down” to certain levels before you can apply for Medicaid to pay for nursing home care. Your spouse who is in the nursing home can keep $2,000 of the countable assets. You, on the other hand, can generally keep more of those countable assets.

via Planning Matters: Don’t let nursing home care claim assets | thetimesherald.com | The Times Herald.