Many people want to know whether they can transfer income or assets to friends or relatives to improve their chances of qualifying for medical assistance to pay for nursing home care.
The goal is to reduce assets to the $3,000 level to qualify for medical assistance. This line of thinking is that they would rather have their family get their assets than the state. Of course, many people have saved and set aside property to pay for their care in old age.
The county can penalize people who transfer assets to qualify for long-term health care in certain circumstances.
If a person were to conduct asset transfers within 60 months of submitting the application for medical assistance for nursing home care, then the county may assess an asset transfer penalty.
Generally speaking, this means that a person must get the property back from the person who received the property and then use the property for his/her care. The value of any asset may be recovered if a person transferred the asset in exchange for less than the fair market value of the asset.