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Texas Medicaid Eligibility 2012

Rich Shea — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:02:24 +0000

Certain numbers used to determine eligibility for Texas Medicaid benefits are subject to change every January 1st. For 2012 there was an increase in the monthly income limit while there was no change in the resource limits. For married Texas Medicaid applicants, there was also a minor increase in the minimum and maximum Community Spousal Protected Resource Amounts. The current figures are listed below.

Income Limit for an Individual:$2,094/month

Income Limit for a Couple: $4,188/month

Resource Limit for an Individual: $2,000

Resource Limit for a Couple: $3,000

Home equity is limited to $525,000

Minimum Community Spousal Protected Amount: $22,728

Maximum Community Spousal Protected Resource Amount: $113,640

What About Your Home?

An experienced Houston Medicaid Attorney can help you protect your home, both while you are alive and as well as preserve its value for your heirs. For additional information, read about our Texas Medicaid Home Protection program.

How Does this Impact Your Family?

If your loved one’s income or assets exceed the values listed above do not give up. A Houston Medicaid Attorney can help you establish Medicaid eligibility through proven techniques while protecting everything your family is entitled to protect. Act now to secure Medicaid eligibility and eliminate the uncertainty and restless nights wondering who will pay the nursing home costs of more than $100 every day. Remember, only you can protect your rights and property. Call The Shea Law Firm at (832) 592-7913 to get started today.

TexasTitle19.com is your connection to an experienced Houston Medicaid Attorney who can help you find the right nursing home, get the best care, and pay for it all without going broke. We are currently focused on Harris and Montgomery Counties, including the areas of Houston, Conroe, The Woodlands, Spring, Tomball, Humble, and Katy. We also provide consulting services throughout all of Texas.

Medicaid Mistakes: Bad Advice from Unqualified People

Rich Shea — Sat, 01 May 2010 12:28:27 +0000

I regularly receive requests to help families that have already tried their own asset protection plan for Medicaid. Sometimes they come to me after a family member has done something with an account the previous week or it could involve an action from years ago and now the money is all gone. Can you see where this is going? If they contact me to fix something, obviously the do it yourself plan went wrong and they are now in a lurch between the nursing home and the Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) with past due nursing home bills usually past the $10,000 mark or more.

How Does This Happen?

There is a lot of information on Texas Medicaid out there that is flat out wrong, mildly inaccurate, or completely inappropriate when applied to a specific family’s set of circumstances. Often times you may hear stories from friends or family about what worked for them and it is not uncommon for medical staff personnel in hospitals and rehab centers to make bold statements on your family member’s Medicaid eligibility.

Think twice before putting your loved one’s financial resources and Medicaid eligibility in their hands. Ask yourself, “Do they work for me? Do they know the details of my situation? Do they know the nuances of Texas and Federal Medicaid laws? Will they stand beside me in front of the HHSC?”

In my experience, most pieces of anecdotal advice from unqualified people are horribly inaccurate. Medicaid rules that may seem black and white at first glance often become a lot more complicated when you consider the very important details that make the difference between receiving benefits and being charged with a penalty. (Ordinarily this is where I jump into a story of how many families think qualifying for certain Medicaid exemptions is much easier than it actually is, but we will cover those situations in a separate article)

I hope you are here to educate yourself before going down this same dangerous road. This is my critical Medicaid mistake #1: relying on bad advice from unqualified people.

What Is The Worst That Can Happen?

Bad advice, or no advice, usually creates more problems than solutions. For example, bad advice has led families to transfer assets out of a parent’s name and then spend all of the funds within the look back period of the parent’s application for Title 19 Medicaid benefits. From a legal perspective, there is no rhyme or reason to these situations and they often lead to disaster. So in a case like this a family has transferred and spent everything and gotten themselves into trouble with the HHSC. What happens now?

Now, that the Medicaid application was denied they recognize they need a Montgomery County Elder Law Attorney to fix the Medicaid eligibility issue. They have already spent everything, how are they going to afford a Montgomery County Medicaid Attorney to help them out of this hole? Speaking for myself, it usually costs more to fix an ill-advised asset protection plan than to create a well designed plan.

Don’t Let This Happen to You

If you are interested in asset protection from nursing home costs without jeopardizing Texas Medicaid eligibility speak with a Houston Medicaid Attorney and do it right the first time. Hope is not a strategy when it comes to proving your case for Medicaid nursing home benefits that cost an average of $5,000 per month.

If you are considering a do it yourself asset protection plan, be prepared to go it alone from start to finish. There are some mistakes that cannot be undone by even the best attorney.

No related posts.

The Spousal Assessment of Assets

Rich Shea — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:19:15 +0000

How will you be able to survive if your spouse needs expensive nursing home care? I hear this question a lot from families facing an unexpected nursing home placement. Unfortunately some families that contact me have already spent more of their own funds than they need to before qualifying for Texas Medicaid nursing home benefits. For the families that contact me early enough to protect assets for the healthy spouse or parent the process all begins with something called the “Spousal Assessment.”

The Spousal Assessment for Texas Medicaid is rather straightforward. It is a snapshot of a married couple’s combined countable resources. This snapshot is the starting point for determining the amount of assets the spouse at home will be able to keep while the spouse in the nursing home pursues Medicaid eligibility. The Spousal Protected Resource Amount is later determined from this initial assessment which many people do not even understand is taking place behind the scenes.

When Can You Initiate a Spousal Assessment

The request and assessment may be made any time from the beginning of the continuous period in an institutional setting to the date of application for Medicaid. Ordinarily this is handled by the Woodlands Medicaid Attorney handling the application for the family.

If you do not have a Woodlands Medicaid Attorney representing you then the couple must provide information on their resources and verification as required by HHSC. If the couple does not provide the verification within the time frame requested by HHSC, HHSC does not complete the assessment and takes no further action = no Medicaid benefits.

When is the Assessment Date

The couple’s combined countable resources are assessed as of 12:01 a.m. on the first day of the month in which the first continuous period in an institutional setting began. When determining the first day of the month in an institutional setting for the Spousal Protected Resource Amount, HHSC may count days the person spent in a hospital if the person admits directly from the hospital to an institutional setting. After the continuous period begins, hospital stays and therapeutic home visits are not considered as breaks in the 30-consecutive-day period.

Are You Giving Away Assets You Can Keep?

The Spousal Assessment procedure is a reminder of how important it is to understand the legal rights you have when faced with a nursing home situation. As I mentioned at the beginning, some families do not contact me until it is too late and they have already spent more than they need to. In situations like that, the family voluntarily gave up assets the healthy spouse was entitled to and it can make surviving that much more difficult for the healthy spouse when they are left with less assets than the law allowed them to keep. Don’t make the same mistake. Speak with a Texas Medicaid Attorney today to protect your rights and property.

The Spousal Protected Resource Amount

Is Property Owned By Your Spouse Protected?

Rich Shea — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:21:24 +0000

When your spouse needs nursing home care many people find themselves in a challenging position. You want your spouse to have the best care possible. You also need to protect assets to maintain your own lifestyle on a fixed income. In an attempt to protect assets some families only change the ownership on assets to the name of the healthy spouse. Does this work?

Is property safe if it is owned only by the healthy spouse and not by the spouse who needs Texas Medicaid benefits?

When you apply for Texas Medicaid nursing home benefits you are only asking for benefits for one person. It makes a certain amount of sense that for eligibility purposes only that person’s assets and income would be examined in order to determine eligibility for Texas Medicaid. However, it is a longstanding law that when one spouse needs Medicaid benefits to pay for nursing home care the assets and income of both spouses are examined in order to determine eligibility. Your combined assets and income must be within the eligibility requirements for a married applicant. As a result, changing the ownership of assets from one spouse to the other provides no asset protection.

Is there anything else that can be done to protect assets?

Absolutely. Whether you need to be eligible for Medicaid benefits imminently or years from now you do have options to protect and make the most of your resources before spending everything on nursing home bills. Speak with a Texas Medicaid Attorney today to protect your hard earned assets from rising nursing home bills.

TexasTitle19.com is your resource to find an experienced Houston Medicaid Attorney who can help you find the right nursing home, get the best care, and pay for it all without going broke. We are currently focused on Harris and Montgomery Counties, including the areas of Houston, Conroe, The Woodlands, Spring, Tomball, Humble, and Katy. We also provide consulting services throughout all of Texas.

The Spousal Protected Resource Amount

Take Back Control

Rich Shea — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:00:28 +0000

Can you answer these questions?

My loved one’s nursing home is ________________________.
My loved one’s nursing home costs $____________ every month.
My loved one will be broke on ___________.
My loved one will be able to keep $_________ in income and qualify for Texas Title 19 Medicaid.
My loved one will be able to keep $_________ in assets and qualify for Texas Title 19 Medicaid.
My loved one will qualify for Texas Medicaid nursing home benefits as of ________.
There is a gap of $_________ in nursing home bills that Texas Medicaid will not cover.
The Department of Aging and Disability Services will not impose a penalty period against my loved one based on the previous 5 years of records.
My loved one’s spouse will be able to keep $_________ in income and assets to maintain his or her standard of living.
My family has taken the proper steps to protect as many assets as possible.

Families facing a Texas nursing home situation are always in a difficult position. Uncertainty suddenly surrounds a family that was previously in control of their health and financial destiny. The first step to restoring stability and reducing anxiety is understanding how a nursing home stay will impact a spouse at home as well as the family’s life savings.

A Texas Medicaid Protection Plan can answer these questions for you and your family as well as give you a plan for the road ahead. Speak with a Texas Medicaid Attorney today to begin yours today. Do not stay at the mercy of the nursing home and government agencies. Get answers to your questions today and take back control of your situation.

No related posts.

Texas Resource Eligibility Limit

Rich Shea — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:29:45 +0000

Every family must prove resource eligibility in addition to establishing income eligibility for Houston Medicaid nursing home benefits. If you or your spouse have too much value in counted resources, your application for Houston Medicaid will be denied. The resource limits are different based on the status of the Medicaid applicant’s spouse, if any.

If the applicant for Medicaid nursing home benefits is single, the resource limit to establish eligibility is $2,000. An applicant with more than $2,000 in counted resources is not eligible for Houston Medicaid nursing home benefits. Does this mean if you need Medicaid nursing home benefits in Houston that you will lose everything except $2,000? No, your Houston Medicaid Attorney can help you and your family protect everything you are entitled to protect under state and federal law.

If the applicant for Medicaid nursing home benefits is married, and the applicant’s spouse is healthy and living at home, then the resource limits are determined along with the Spousal Protected Resource Amount (SPRA). The rules governing how to calculate the SPRA are too complicated to cover here, but we will review them in a later post. The SPRA is the final word on what assets the healthy spouse will be allowed to keep for the rest of their life while one spouse is receiving Houston Medicaid benefits. Your Texas Medicaid Attorney can help your family get the largest SPRA you are entitled to.

Your resources are your life savings, don’t lose everything to Houston nursing home costs. Protect everything you can with an experienced Houston Medicaid Attorney. Call (832) 592-7913 to get started today.

TexasTitle19.com is your resource to find an experienced Texas Medicaid Attorney who can help you find the right nursing home, get the best care, and pay for it all without going broke. We are currently focused on Harris and Montgomery Counties, including the areas of Houston, Conroe, The Woodlands, Spring, Tomball, Humble, and Katy.