Get informed on elder care eligibility

This is the third installment of a column that appeared Dec. 27 about the challenges of financing elder care.When you are considering your elder care options, it pays to enlist help on eligibility issues. Don't assume anything until you do. Without the proper insight, you might do something against your interest. For example, take a cash-poor but house-rich couple. They may assume they have to sell their home to pay for long-term nursing home care. Perhaps not. The Medicaid safety net may come into play, allowing the couple to keep their home.Medicaid, or Title 19, is means-tested -- shoes only those who have limited assets and income are eligible.The limits for "counted" assets are very meager (currently, the spouse that does not need care, the "community spouse," can only have up to $109,560 in assets; the spouse who needs care, the "institutionalized individual," cannot have more than $1,600 in assets (that's not a typo). The asset limit for a single individual is also $1,600.However, and this is where it pays to be informed -- not all assets are "counted." Not counted assets are exempt from the limitations; you can keep them and still qualify for Medicaid assuming you meet all other eligibility requirements. Moreover, certain assets have greater weight than others based on who owns the asset ("Spousal Share" and "Community Spouse Protected Amount" or "CSPA") and in some cases, how the asset is used (for example, who resides in the institutionalized individual's residence). Eligibility is determined on a case-by-case basis upon application to the state Department of Social Services (DSS).Terminology is important. The definitions below come from a DSS report entitled, "Long Term Care Issues and Medicaid," prepared by DSS's Adult Services, Bureau of Assistance Programs, a publication that you'll want to get. (Call DSS at 860-424-5250 for a copy or go online to ct.gov and search for DSS.)The spousal share is "the amount that can be protected . . . determined by adding together the counted assets of both spouses as of the date the institutionalized individual entered the facility and dividing the amount in half to establish a spousal share," according to the report.The spousal share is used in the calculation of the CSPA, which is the amount the community spouse can keep without crippling the institutionalized individual's eligibility.DSS defines the CSPA to be "equal to the greatest of the following amounts

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