The New Jersey Director of Medicaid approved the transfer of an applicant’s home to a “caregiver child” even though she worked full-time because medically, the applicant would qualified for Nj Medicaid's home-based services.
The application was originally denied by the Bergen County assistance office and a judge at the initial appeal hearing.
Generally, Medicaid will impose a "penalty" when someone gives an asset away within 5 years of the application date.
A "penalty" is also known as a period of time in which Medicaid will not pay for the long term care costs of the applicant.
However, there is an exception known as a “caregiver child exemption" - this rule stipulates that if an applicant's child has been living in the home and providing a nursing home level of care for his/her parent for at least 2 years before the application date, the house can be transferred to the child without penalty.
In the past, NJ has denied the transfers even if the child was providing this level of care BUT has worked outside of the home, stating that the child did not provide the care if they were not at home and at work.
This "win" is big and will help allow other children to benefit by the “caregiver child exemption" when applying for Medicaid.
The Medicaid application process is extremely complex, if you're helping a loved one with the Medicaid process you owe it to yourself and your loved one to have expert representation to ensure that your application is approved as quickly as possible and that you're able to benefit by the many rules put in place.
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