Author: Mark Easley

Often, older individuals need a moderate level of care, but do not necessarily need to leave their home and enter an assisted living facility or a skilled nursing facility. With a moderate amount of care provided by in-home care, the individual can remain in the home and in the community, living comfortably with the assistance […]

It is important for Hospital Discharge Planners, Healthcare Providers, Social Workers, Nurses, etc. to have a working knowledge of the basics of the Medicaid qualification process and of the basic planning tools available to families in order to direct patients in their care plan to the proper professionals to maximize options. In the process of […]

Navigating Illinois’s Medicaid application backlog can be difficult for families when their loved one needs long-term care. In this article, we will discuss steps you can take to ensure your application is moving through the system. According to the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services (HFS) at illinois.gov, the number of Medicaid applications which […]

A standard, open-market annuity might ruin your Medicaid exemption because Medicaid treats it as a countable asset with accessible cash value. To obtain Medicaid eligibility while owning an annuity, it must be a Medicaid compliant annuity. An annuity is a contract between you and an insurance company, wherein you invest money and the insurer guarantees […]

The Medicaid sibling exemption allows a Medicaid applicant to transfer their primary residence to a qualified sibling without violating the 5-year Look-Back Period or facing Medicaid penalties. This protects the home from being counted toward asset limits and shields it from Medicaid’s Estate Recovery Program after the applicant passes away. There are strict eligibility requirements […]

When one spouse of a married couple enters a nursing home using Medicaid benefits, the government provides spousal impoverishment protections to ensure the well spouse can continue to live comfortably in the community. In states like Illinois, Arkansas, and Indiana, when one spouse enters long-term care, the community spouse is simply assigned a portion of […]