Anyone With Medicaid Experience After Parent in Nursing Home Passes Away?

MIGrandma

Lives in the middle-of-the-mitten.
Joined
Aug 12, 2009
My mother went to live in a nursing home back in October 2015. As the cost per month was much more than she could afford we were able to get Medicaid assistance for her. She passed away last month and I received a letter a couple weeks later letting us know she was no longer eligible for Medicaid assistance, which I already knew of course. :)

I thought that would be the end of it.

No, I received a letter from them in today's mail wanting me to fill out an information sheet and return it. Most of the questions they already know the answers to, as I had to answer them when we applied for Medicaid for her and again this past January to "renew" it as they do each year. I will fill it out and return it, of course, and include the copy of the death certificate they asked for. I'm a little puzzled as to why they want copies of her bank statements, as they know what her income was and they took all but $60 of that each month for her care in the nursing home. Are they going to want that $60 per month X the number of months she was covered under Medicaid? I did have to provide statements, again, when we "renewed" her Medicaid coverage this past January so I don't really understand why they want copies again 6 months later. Nothing has changed.

Also, she owned a car at the time she went into the nursing home, which of course they knew about and told me I could not sell it as long as she was living. They said we could drive it, but not sell it. We didn't drive it much, we had no real need to, but we did keep it stored and insured. So, now that she has passed I just "assumed" I was free to sell it. We had my name added to the title several months ago. I have a buyer for it (one of our granddaughters) but now I'm concerned maybe I still can't sell it?

Does anyone here have any experience with this sort of thing? Are they going to want payment for the car if I do sell it?

They also asked about my father, which they already know he is deceased. They want his social security number. I have no idea what that was and no paperwork that I know of that I can find it on. Can I just put "unknown" in that box on the form I need to fill out?

I do have a number on the paper that I can call if I have questions, but of course I can't call until Monday so just thought I would ask here if anyone has any experience in dealing with Medicaid after a parent in a nursing home has passed away.

Oh, I'm an only child so no other siblings to split anything of value with. But besides her car she didn't own anything, as she lived in a senior apartment. Just had her household contents and we dealt with all of that when she moved into the nursing home so basically I just have mementoes, dishes, a few antique vases from her mother, that sort of thing.

Edited to add: I was told by the mortician at the funeral home that when they registered her death it would "ping" social security so they would know about her death and her social security payments would stop. Also, about a week after her death I called General Motors (where my Dad worked) and told them of her death so her pension checks would stop. She did receive another at the first of this month but I was told to just destroy it. So no more income is going into her checking or savings accounts.
 
I am so sorry for your loss. I don't know the answer to your questions, but just want to share that my best friend's mother passed away in 2015 and was in a Medicaid paid nursing home. Her father was deceased and her mother owned a home. My friend has been advised by Medicaid that when she sells the home, she will be required to repay Medicaid from the proceeds of the sale of the house. I think it is about $30,000.
 
I am so sorry for your loss. I don't know the answer to your questions, but just want to share that my best friend's mother passed away in 2015 and was in a Medicaid paid nursing home. Her father was deceased and her mother owned a home. My friend has been advised by Medicaid that when she sells the home, she will be required to repay Medicaid from the proceeds of the sale of the house. I think it is about $30,000.

So, if I sell the car for $4,000 they would probably want me to pay that to them then I assume? Or maybe they would want the Kelly Blue Book price. I just don't know. I'll probably have to call them Monday and ask my questions.
 
So, if I sell the car for $4,000 they would probably want me to pay that to them then I assume? Or maybe they would want the Kelly Blue Book price. I just don't know. I'll probably have to call them Monday and ask my questions.

Could be. You are definitely going to have to call to get some answers. Good luck.
 


Could be. You are definitely going to have to call to get some answers. Good luck.

Thanks.

I just told DH about the form I need to fill out and he said "the car is YOUR car now." Um, no....probably not. Well, it is for now, until I sell it. :) But I'm kind of doubting the money would be mine.
 
I had to deal with it for my grandma since my mom already passed away. I cant remember because it was a long while ago but I think the bookeeper told me the nursing home was keeping whatever was in her personal account there, (the $60) monthly that you mentioned).

She told me we could use what little money she had for a headstone since the funeral was required to be prepaid by the state. Our state had a limit of what you could keep for that ahead of time.

Sorry for your loss.

As the other poster said yes I think you would have to give your state Medicaid the proceeds from the car.
 
I assume they suggested you not sell the car because you'd have to spend down the profit toward her care.
 


I have a child with special needs on a Medicaid waiver program. I don't claim to understand everything about Medicaid but I distinctly recall having to sign something that basically said that Medicaid has the right to my son's assets after he passes to recoup their costs. And I had to fill out a very long questionaire that asked about everything from bank statements, to trust funds, to mineral rights, to rail road commissions. If Medicaid knew about your mother's car, and she owned it when she started Medicaid, I would guess that they expect it to be theirs. But I don't know for sure. I would definitely call come Monday morning to speak with them directly.
 
I am so sorry for your loss. I don't know the answer to your questions, but just want to share that my best friend's mother passed away in 2015 and was in a Medicaid paid nursing home. Her father was deceased and her mother owned a home. My friend has been advised by Medicaid that when she sells the home, she will be required to repay Medicaid from the proceeds of the sale of the house. I think it is about $30,000.

OP, I'm so sorry for your loss.

Oregon does this. Years ago, I worked as a legal secretary, and it surprised me to find that Oregon billed for all Medicaid paid out, even if it was decades ago. It left some of our clients without any inheritance at all. Medicaid is not really insurance, but rather a loan.
 
Thanks.

I just told DH about the form I need to fill out and he said "the car is YOUR car now." Um, no....probably not. Well, it is for now, until I sell it. :) But I'm kind of doubting the money would be mine.

I really don't think that's how it works. The car was your mother's.
 
I really don't think that's how it works. The car was your mother's.

I think you're right, but I just wish they would have let me sell the car when she was in the nursing home. I would have sold it a long time ago and been done with all this. She was never going to drive it again and we didn't need the car ourselves so we've been storing it and keeping it insured (we did drive it occasionally to keep the battery charged) and we wouldn't have had to.
 
OP, I'm so sorry for your loss.

Oregon does this. Years ago, I worked as a legal secretary, and it surprised me to find that Oregon billed for all Medicaid paid out, even if it was decades ago. It left some of our clients without any inheritance at all. Medicaid is not really insurance, but rather a loan.

Medicaid is not insurance. It is a government benefits program that is paid for by the taxpayers of America. I would assume that they would want to recoup some of their money if the recipient of the Medicaid had any assets after their passing.

Sorry for your loss.
 
Medicaid is not insurance. It is a government benefits program that is paid for by the taxpayers of America. I would assume that they would want to recoup some of their money if the recipient of the Medicaid had any assets after their passing.

Sorry for your loss.

Right, but many people view it as insurance. When I'm at work, we call it "insurance." However, it's important to remember that it isn't. In fact, since you are billed for what was paid, rather than what a premium would have been, it's really expensive to the user in states that want to be reimbursed.
 
You need someone who is an expert in Medicaid.
We were forced to sell EVERYTHING my wife's Grandparents had.,.....their house....their car....before Medicaid who step in. They could pre-pay their funeral expenses, but other than that, they had to spend everything on their care other than $2,000. I suspect they will want the car appraised, sold and the money returned to them.
 
You need someone who is an expert in Medicaid.
We were forced to sell EVERYTHING my wife's Grandparents had.,.....their house....their car....before Medicaid who step in. They could pre-pay their funeral expenses, but other than that, they had to spend everything on their care other than $2,000. I suspect they will want the car appraised, sold and the money returned to them.

Yes, I understand about needing an expert in Medicaid, we went that route before she went into the nursing home. But they never said what would happen AFTER she passed away. I knew, of course, Medicaid would stop helping to pay for her care once she passed, but wasn't sure if I had to let her caseworker know or what. But before I had a chance to inquire about that I received a letter from Medicaid that Mom was "no longer eligible for their assistance" so from that I knew that they knew she had passed away. I thought that would be the end of it. I never thought about them wanting the money for her car especially since my name is also on the title, until I got the paper today to fill out. I plan to call them Monday and ask what happens now with her car. I don't want to sell it to our granddaughter until I know for sure what they expect/want done with it.

We went through Medicaid when Mom had to put Dad into a nursing home (he had Alzheimer's) but they didn't make her sell everything. They realize the spouse still has to live too. They didn't make her pay anything toward his care, as she even had rent to pay as they lived in a senior apartment complex. So there was no house to sell or anything like that. They did pre-pay for their funeral expenses, and when Mom went to the nursing home they told me I could pay for upgrades to her funeral so I did do that.
 
I am so very sorry for your loss, and I am doubly sorry for all this difficult, practical stuff which now falls to you to handle.

As far as your father's Social Security #, do you have a copy of his death certificate anywhere? I don't know if that would suffice, but most death certificates have a place for that information. It would be a starting place at least.
 
My mom was on Medicaid. When she passed I had to fill out forms sent by Medicaid similar to the ones you have received. I had to send a check for the amount left in her checking account, the balance in her nursing home account was sent to them. They asked about anything else that she owned==property, car, etc. So, proceeds from the sale of the car will have to be sent to them as well as it is her car.

I would also advise you to hold on to any paperwork that you have regarding Medicaid applications, health insurance premiums, etc. for at least a year. My mom passed in mid March 2016 and I plan to hold on to her paperwork until March 2018 just to be on the safe side. (Just last month I received notices from Medicare and BCBS about her last hospital/hospice stays.)
 
I was on the title to my dad's car when he passed away. We didn't have to sell it because it was jointly owned. I was on the title before he applied for benefits so that might have made a difference.
 
I was on the title to my dad's car when he passed away. We didn't have to sell it because it was jointly owned. I was on the title before he applied for benefits so that might have made a difference.
I think you are correct. It was OP mom's car when she started getting Medicaid, so it probably was against Medicaid rules to add another name to the title afterwards. We weren't give the option of keeping my wife's Grandparents car, Medicaid said it had to be sold and the money used to pay for their care.
 
Yep, we do this at work (law office). For Iowa anyway, you have to state her assets, you get to use some to pay for funeral, last medical expenses, attorney fees. Then pay them everything that's left. They want your dad's info because if he had been on Medicaid, it's possible your mom could have delayed repayment until her death. (Not saying that happened, but they have to check.)
 

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