bryan916
12-11-2007, 12:24 AM
Hello Everyone,
My father is currently at a senior care facility, and once he is done with his rehab the HMO is going to stop paying for his stay there. I am currently in the process of applying for Medi-Cal to continue paying for his stay and had some questions.. maybe someone has come across this situation before. My Dad currently has about $20,000 in assets (not including monthly disability income). According to Medi-Cal he must have under $2,000 in order for them to provide any type of coverage (partial or full). I went to a company that the senior care facility referred me to. They charged $500 to help with all the paperwork, and told me the following:
1. My father can "gift" his assets up to a certain amount to family members.
2. He can write checks of $5,000 a day maximum.. so that would be 4 checks that he writes out to me.
3. I would be able to deposit that money into an account (which I would open up seperately under my name and keep specifically for my father).
I know that Medi-Cal says not to pay anyone to help with the paperwork, but I have been really busy with work and other stuff in my life, and it has been very stressful as is just trying to do other basic stuff for my Dad. I mentioned the IRS gift tax of $10 (or $12k?) per year, but they said that shouldn't be a concern. They also said that this is legal as long as all of the paperwork is shown to Medi-Cal.. but why do they have these asset rules when you can just transfer assets to family members.
This sounds really fishy to me.. has anyone been in this situation before? Any words of warning?
My father is currently at a senior care facility, and once he is done with his rehab the HMO is going to stop paying for his stay there. I am currently in the process of applying for Medi-Cal to continue paying for his stay and had some questions.. maybe someone has come across this situation before. My Dad currently has about $20,000 in assets (not including monthly disability income). According to Medi-Cal he must have under $2,000 in order for them to provide any type of coverage (partial or full). I went to a company that the senior care facility referred me to. They charged $500 to help with all the paperwork, and told me the following:
1. My father can "gift" his assets up to a certain amount to family members.
2. He can write checks of $5,000 a day maximum.. so that would be 4 checks that he writes out to me.
3. I would be able to deposit that money into an account (which I would open up seperately under my name and keep specifically for my father).
I know that Medi-Cal says not to pay anyone to help with the paperwork, but I have been really busy with work and other stuff in my life, and it has been very stressful as is just trying to do other basic stuff for my Dad. I mentioned the IRS gift tax of $10 (or $12k?) per year, but they said that shouldn't be a concern. They also said that this is legal as long as all of the paperwork is shown to Medi-Cal.. but why do they have these asset rules when you can just transfer assets to family members.
This sounds really fishy to me.. has anyone been in this situation before? Any words of warning?