Florida is the latest state to eliminate Medicaid retroactive eligibility. This is very bad news for our senior citizens in a skilled nursing facility.
Under the rules now, an applicant for Medicaid can ask for retroactive benefits for up to 3 months. If the applicant is eligible for each month, they will get the benefit. This was very important for facilities and families who may have inadvertently delayed filing a timely application or not even known they were eligible.
Everyone knows it takes time and expertise to do a Medicaid application.
Additionally, this extra time is necessary because the process can be slow, difficult and confusing, especially for lay people. It may take an individual or facility more than 30 days to gather all of the information on assets and income or do a Qualified Income Trust or provide other information needed for eligibility.
Our families do not have this protection anymore. As of February 1, 2019, the three month eligibility will be eliminated.
Call or email us now to see how this affects you, your family, your facility or your clients.
By the way!
Our office almost always makes sure our clients are eligible as soon as possible. We do the application, collect documents, shelter assets, and fund the QIT etc. all within the month we need eligibility.
We don’t need three months!
We make it clear that the client’s cooperation is paramount and they must guarantee this cooperation in order to become our client. This way we only have happy clients and happy facilities.
