It can be important to complete a Medicaid application, and to provide all supporting paperwork, have any needed Income Cap Trust in place, and the like before the end of a month.

    In many cases, even if the case worker has not had a chance to review the application and supporting documents during the month of application, Medicaid will still cover long term care back to the beginning of the month of application if the application was complete by the last day of that month.

    Since care costs can range from $3,000 to $10,000 per month, or even more sometimes, it can be very important to qualify for this retroactive payment of care costs in some cases.

    This concept does not apply only to the submission of paperwork.  This also applies to things like the date that certain financial transactions clear, and what Medicaid considers to be a completed financial transaction, versus a transaction that was not completed on a given day in the view of Medicaid, which could mean that spend down and qualification for Medicaid did not take place on the date a person might otherwise expect, and that Medicaid coverage for the month might be denied.

    Just a day’s difference in the date of a complete application or actual spend down and actual qualification for Medicaid can make a very significant difference to the bottom line, when care costs are this high.

    Working with a lawyer who understands these issues can often help to ensure that a proper and complete application is submitted in a timely fashion.

    Working with a lawyer who understands these issues can also forestall some unfortunate choices that some applicants make, including paying for things that could have been paid through Medicaid, but for which no reimbursement will be forthcoming, or entering into transactions that do not clear in a given month, but that could have cleared with proper planning.