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Orange City Estate Planning Blog

Watch Your Language: Institutionalized Spouse

Institutionalized. Sounds kind of scary, right? Fortunately, when we’re talking about Medicaid, saying someone is the institutionalized spouse really only means that they are the nursing home resident, the person who needs Medicaid coverage. [Read More]

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Watch Your Language: Penalty Divisor

If you’ve transferred assets within the lookback period, the state is going to assess an eligibility penalty period based on the value of all the transfers you made within that 60-month window. The penalty period can be calculated by dividing the value of that gift by the penalty divisor. [Read More]

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Watch Your Language: Lookback Period

If you’ve heard anything about Medicaid, you’ve probably heard about the lookback period. In Iowa, the lookback period is the period of time starting with the day you apply for Medicaid and extending back through time for sixty months. We break that definition down after the jump. [Read More]

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Watch Your Language: Penalty Period

A transfer occurs anytime you sell, trade, or give away money or property. Sometimes a transfer is for fair value, such as when you trade in your car or buy groceries. Sometimes, though, you make a transfer without expecting anything in return – like a birthday or Christmas gift. This is called a disallowed transfer, and it means you will not be eligible for Medicaid for a certain period of time called the penalty period. [Read More]

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Watch Your Language: Transfer

Seems obvious, right? In daily life, a transfer happens when property changes hands. You can transfer money between bank accounts or transfer germs between school children. In grilling and smoking, “transfer” means removing food from the grill or smoker. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple in the Medicaid world. [Read More]

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You Need a Medicaid Guidebook – and an Expert Guide, too

Iowa Medicaid – sometimes called Title XIX (Title 19) – is a mashup of federal statutes and regulations, state-specific rule tweaks, and both formal and informal agency policies. The system itself is intricate enough, but then the individual case workers who process Medicaid applications don’t always apply the rules in the same way. It’s virtually impossible to navigate the maze without a guide. [Read More]

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