Income V. Assets

MassHealth uses assets to determine eligibility. Assets are not Income. Your income is the money you receive on a monthly/quarterly bases from social security, pensions, VA, dividends, etc... You must verify all income including your spouses, if you are married. The income is looked at to see what the institutionalized individual will be paying towards their care. When there is a married couple, the spouse who is staying at home may get to keep a portion, or all, of the institutionalized spouse's income. The state does not wish to see a spouse being left impoverished due to their spouse entering a facility.

Your assets (bank accounts, real estate, stocks, bonds, life insurance, annuities, cars, etc...) are looked at to determine your eligibility. If you are a single individual you can have $2,000 in assets. If you are married you can have a combined $125,600. For married couples, once eligibility is determined you will have 90 days to separate the assets, the spouse in the facility gets $2,000 and the spouse at home will get to keep $123,600?

If you have too many assets to be eligible for MassHealth, there are certain things you can spend the money on without being penalized; prepaid funeral, cemetery needs, burial account with $1500, legal debt or medical bills. YOU CANNOT GIVE AWAY ANY ASSETS OR YOU WILL BE PENALIZED FROM MASSHEALTH. The only exception to this is if you have a disabled child (child doesn't necessarily mean minor, it means the offspring of the individual applying.) There are limited quality of life preservation options available to those who find they still have excess assets upon needing MassHealth Long-Term Care services. Call us today to book a consult and find out what your options are.