Hello all! My mom had a stroke on March 3rd and at the end of her hospital stay and 20 days in rehab at SNF she tried living at home for a week but it was a disaster. So she was admitted to another SNF on medicaid pending for long term care. Well, after a lot of paper work she was approved. Hooray! But I'm worried she will still have a huge bill from the nursing home. Here's why; *I understand that she'll have a liability balance to pay the SNF monthly which will be her SSI and pension check minus $56 for living expenses. *However, the first month she was there (May) she still had rent at her apartment and utilities to be paid. I moved her out of her apartment as fast as I could, but the month of May had to be paid. She'll get some money back for her apartment deposit, but that will only cover a few hundred. Also, she was admitted to SNF at the end of April. Leaving three days at $216 each! OUCH! *By my calculations she's looking at a bill of around $1,000 that she will not have cash to cover. So, now what? The SNF wont be able to kick her out, but how upset will they be about the deficit? As long as she's there she will have no way to pay it back. I know I'm not legally required to pay it for her, but after the uptenth piece of mail saying "over due!" I'll probably start to develop an ulcer. (My mother is happy to turn her head to an over due bill, but I'm not!) Has anyone else gone through this? Is there anyway around it?
In my state, at the time Mom was in the approval process, once approved Medicaid would pay retroactively for 3 months. Which they did. But there were 2 months still due. All of Moms funds were spent down but thankfully we had held on to her car. We sold her car. It was just enough to cover the balance due.
Check with your Medicaid office as to the time frame Medicaid will pay retroactively once Mom is approved.