My mom and her lived right next door to each other. When she died, I took over caring for my 90 yo gma. I was able to keep her in her own home for almost 3 years. At 93, she needs assisted living. She gave me 10,000 out of an annuity. I claimed it on the initial medicaid app. It was to pay me to care for her. I did pay for lawyers for a new POA, Will, and medical directive. I paid to have her furnace fixed and her meds, some groceries at times, new bath bench etc. But it was supposed to help me with loss of income. What paperwork do I need to submit with the bank statements, prepaid funeral costs etc? I didn't keep receipts like I should have. But when my mom died, my grandma knew she would need me there at least once a day. I did all her cleaning, shopping, cooking, laundry, doctors, meds, paperwork, cats to the vet etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
In order to get some if not all of the 10K not to be viewed as gifting you need to have a documented paper trail as to where all the funds went. You need to call vendors and ask for an invoice for payments done and go by and pick up the receipts. You can go to the bank and get copies of the checks used if you can't access back 3 years on-line. Just put on your best Veronica Mars or Nancy Drew and hunt down paperwork.
Personally I think you are going to be hit with a transfer penalty for whatever you can't document. Without a personal care contract for her to pay you and the income paid to you fully reported for taxes, it looks like gifting. If its 1/2, that's only 5K. And in the world of NH costs that is very very little money as NH run 5K - 15K a mo. Sometimes AL can cost 4K - 5K a month so it would mean just a month or so of having to private pay for her care. IF its looking like this call for a family meeting to ask/beg/cry for family to contribute to get past a transfer penalty and private pay till penalty period is over.
Also as another thought, you mention moving her to AL. Please make absolutely sure that the AL place will take your gran as a resident on Medicaid and will take her without 2 or 3 years of private pay. Medicaid paying for AL is done by a waiver program and so is limited or nonexistent in many places. It may be easily to get her into a NH/skilled nursing care and onto Medicaid at a NH instead. Good luck.