Can Medi-Cal Still Recover From My Canoga Park Estate After I Die?
Yes — but California’s Medi-Cal estate recovery rules are much narrower than they used to be.
For a Medi-Cal recipient who dies on or after January 1, 2017, the State generally seeks recovery only for certain long-term-care-related Medi-Cal benefits and only from assets that are part of the person’s probate estate.
That is a very important limitation.
Property that passes outside probate — for example, property properly held in a living trust, property passing by survivorship, or an account with a valid transfer-on-death or payable-on-death beneficiary — generally is not part of the estate subject to Medi-Cal recovery.
What can Medi-Cal recover from my Canoga Park estate ?
For someone age 55 or older, recovery is generally limited to Medi-Cal payments for:
Nursing-facility services
Home- and community-based services
Certain related hospital services
Certain related prescription-drug services
The State cannot simply recover every dollar of Medi-Cal benefits a person ever received.
And DHCS cannot recover more than the lesser of the amount of recoverable Medi-Cal benefits paid or the value of the probate estate.
There are important exceptions:
California prohibits estate recovery when the deceased Medi-Cal recipient is survived by:
A spouse or registered domestic partner
A child under age 21
A child of any age who is blind or disabled under the applicable federal definition
DHCS must also provide a process for heirs or survivors to request a hardship waiver in appropriate circumstances.
Example
Suppose Mom received $180,000 of Medi-Cal-covered nursing-home care in Canoga Park before she died.
At death, her $900,000 house is properly titled in her living trust and passes to her children through the trust. She has only $25,000 of other property requiring probate.
Medi-Cal does not automatically have a $180,000 claim against the Canoga Park house simply because Mom received $180,000 of benefits.
Under California’s current rules, the recovery analysis generally focuses on the property actually included in Mom’s probate estate.
That is why estate recovery planning and Medi-Cal eligibility planning are related — but they are not the same thing.
The key point:
Receiving Medi-Cal does not automatically mean the State gets your estate when you die.
The questions are what benefits you received, when you received them, what property you owned at death, how that property passes, and whether one of the statutory protections applies.
Click below to learn more about estate planning in Canoga Park. https://www.robertkleelaw.com/canoga-park-estate-planning
Comments