Currently the house is in both of our names. For the second year in a row mom finds herself in a rehab facility to regain her abilities to care for herself. Once again medicare only pays 100% for 20 days, after that they only pay 80% leaving a monthly bill of around $4500.00 dollars. They tell me that she could apply for medicaid to pick up that cost, but that her name being on the deed along with mine (her son) may disqualify her from getting medicaid. Should I have her name removed from the deed so she can get financial assistance?
How the penalty is done varies by state. For example in TX a 100k house with 50% ownership in TX is roughly a 322 day penalty period before they can be eligible for Medicaid to pay. 322 days.......
If someone told you that moms owning a home disqualifies her from medicaid, that is wrong, wrong, wrong! Medicaid allows them to have as an exempt asset their home & a car. Now upon their death, the house becomes an nonexempt asset of their estate and is subject to the possibility of a claim or lien by Medicaid to reinburse the state for costs paid by Medicaid by MERP (or MERS).
Add into this is that medicaid does require them to do a monthly co-pay or SOC (share of cost) of their monthly income to the NH less a personal needs allowance. The PNA varies by state from $ 35 -105.
The issue then arises is that although Medicaid does NOT require them to sell the home as the home is an exempt asset BUT they -due to the SOC - do not have any of their own $ to pay house expenses.
Family & the elder then has a choice: either family pays on all costs on the house from now till when mom dies & then thorough probate OR the house gets sold & the proceeds from the sale used as moms spend down to qualify for Medicaid.
Your situation get complicated as you own 50%. If you keep the house, someone is going to have to keep meticulous records on every penny of house costs from now till after death & probably plan on doing probate to settle the estate and deal with MERP within probate.
Really you are going to need legal to deal with this to ensure whatever you do does not pose issues for medicaid or property ownership. Please, please, please keep in mind that real property is recorded locally and dovetails to state database. Doing any changes is really easy to find out as its all recorded.