Medicaid and Income

How does Medicaid look at income?

If you are single, DHS has a limit on income of $2022 per month. The Department of Human services will tell you that if you make over that amount, you will not qualify for services. That is technically true, but putting the income into an Irrevocable Income Only (Miller) Trust will correct the problem. The timing must be done exactly right on this or you can easily miss a month or more of benefits if this is not correct.

For a married couple, the spouse not in the nursing home gets to keep one half of the assets, and they also get to keep a minimal amount of income. That amount $1821.25 (this is the number as of 2011). So, the spouse not in the nursing home gets to keep all of their own income regardless of the amount. If the well spouse does not make $1821.25 each month, then they get to keep all of their income and enough of their spouses income to get them up to that amount.

What if both incomes do not come up to that amount?

We then request that the Department allow us to keep more than one half of the assets to use the interest off of that money to get the income up to the minimal amount. There are also certain circumstances that will allow us to raise the minimum income amount but that is very case specific.