“THE STATE WILL take the house!”
No, it won’t.
Now, let’s back up:
Obviously, I go on and on about where to call, or look for help — and help can take a million forms.
It might be help with health insurance (Medicare?), help with reducing or eliminating some bills so you can make it from month to month, help at home after a hospitalization, help with grab-bars, or help with handling a loved one’s dementia, etc.
And help only helps if it helps.
It does not help if you can’t get it because you’re afraid that you’ll lose everything you own if you even dare to ask for it.
Right. Here’s the truth:
“The state will take the house” is the most common translation I hear for what I call, “Medicaid recovery” or “estate recovery.”
It only applies to people who have Medicaid health insurance and/or some form of Medicaid-funded long-term care, i.e. Medicaid is paying for nursing home/facility care or some form of in-home care.
That’s it. Period.
The key word here is Medicaid.
First, Medicaid is not Medicare, so estate recovery doesn’t apply to anything relating to Medicare.
It also doesn’t apply to congregate nutrition, privately paid in-home care, Home Health, caregiver support, respite, legal assistance or any of roughly 7 million other things I could rattle off.
In fact, Medicaid recovery doesn’t even apply to some things that Medicaid actually pays for, such as the Medicare Savings Programs (those are those weird acronyms: QMB, SLMB, etc.) that help a lot of us with our Medicare Part B premiums and/or co-pays, or some other forms of in-home help for unpaid family caregivers (i.e. Medicaid Alternative Care or Targeted Services for Older Adults).
Actually, Medicaid recovery does not apply to most of the services, programs and resources that you might encounter if you called any of the numbers at the end of this column.
And it certainly does not apply (ever, under any circumstances) to conversations.
So, that means that you can call any of the “Information & Assistance” offices below and talk to decent people about whatever is on your mind (ask your questions, tell your story, etc.), then see what might be available that could help.
If some program or benefit that might help you could be subject to Medicaid recovery, they will tell you that.
And that won’t cost you anything.
They will also tell you what it means (and what it doesn’t mean), how it works, potential ways to reduce or eliminate it (depending on your personal circumstances), etc.
So, you are risking nothing by making that phone call, and you can always decide not to apply for whatever it is, if that’s your choice.
Further, if you happen to be Native American/Alaska Native, there are even more restrictions on Medicaid recovery which often eliminate it.
I have seen way more money lost — not to mention fear, pain and grief — due to not asking for a little help than I’ve ever seen lost to Medicaid recovery.
Obviously, I live in a universe of weird acronyms and programs with arcane, labyrinthine regulations and procedures designed to drive normally intelligent people to the brink of something that most of us don’t want to be on the brink of. I would change that if I could but I can’t.
So, the choice I have to offer you is to have a conversation with genuinely decent human beings who will tell you the truth and not charge you anything for it or try to sell you anything.
Still feeling spooky?
Then, email me at harvemb@dshs.wa.gov and let’s have a private exchange on the matter. Then you can decide to do whatever you decide to do … which, I hope, will take that fear away.
And replace it with hope.
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Mark Harvey is director of Clallam/Jefferson Senior Information & Assistance, which operates through the Olympic Area Agency on Aging. He is also a member of the Community Advocates for Rural Elders partnership. He can be reached at 360-452-3221 (Port Angeles-Sequim), 360-385-2552 (Jefferson County) or 360-374-9496 (West End), or by emailing harvemb@dshs.wa.gov.
