Medicaid Exclusion for Joint Assets Under Attack

It is a well established principle of the Maryland Medicaid rules that certain jointly owned assets such as stocks or real property will not be counted as available resources to a nursing home resident who applies for Medicaid benefits if the other joint owner refuses to participate in a sale of the property.

For decades, such assets have been disclosed by nursing home residents on their Medicaid applications and such assets have been valued at zero for purposes of determining Medicaid eligibility.

Recently, however, a Medicaid applicant was denied Medicaid coverage for nursing home care because the applicant owned stock, in certificate form, with her son in joint ownership, even though the son had refused to participate in a sale of the stock. Ordinarily, such a denial by a Medicaid caseworker would be overturned when the case was appealed to an Administrative Law Judge, but in this case, the Administrative Law Judge ignored the specific regulation in the Maryland Medicaid Manual that explicitly states that jointly owned stock should not be a countable asset where the joint owner refuses to sell.

Such denial has implications, not only for the particular individual whose Medicaid application was denied, but for Medicaid applicants statewide. Indeed, this case has been appealed to the Circuit Court of Maryland where a senior Assistant Attorney General, representing Maryland’s Medicaid authority, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, essentially has requested the Circuit Court to issue a decision that radically revises the long standing Medicaid policy concerning such jointly owned assets.

If the Circuit Court were to uphold the decision of the Administrative Law Judge in this particular case, then it would shroud the process of dealing with jointly owned assets in a cloud of uncertainty. No longer would Medicaid applicants and their advisers be able to act with certainty regarding jointly owned assets, as there would exist the possibility that Medicaid caseworkers could arbitrarily ignore the applicable rule on the strength of judicial precedent.

This is not the proper way for the Medicaid authorities to change their policy. The proper way is to propose rule changes, either by changing the Code of Maryland Regulations, or by changing the Maryland Medicaid manual. Simply leaving a rule in place that exempts joint assets from consideration, but then attacking such an arrangement by imposing Medicaid ineligibility on a case-by-case basis on unsuspecting Medicaid applicants is bad public policy.

The State’s efforts to deny benefits in the case under discussion in this article is an example of such bad public policy.

William M. Gatesman is following the progress of this case closely and will inform the readers of this website of any new developments as they arise.

In the meantime, Mr. Gatesman stands ready to assist clients with prudent Medicaid eligibility and asset protection planning in the context of a changing landscape.