Can I apply for Medicaid if I have on a bank account 5000 dollars?

You can apply for Medicaid any time....but if you do not meet the criteria, you will initially be turned down, and the caseworker who reviews it will tell you exactly why you were not eligible and what you need to do to become eligible. There is a 5 year look back, into all your assets, cost of living, medical costs and more. If you have gifted any assets to anyone in your family, there will be a waiting period determined before you would be accepted. I am in Arizona, so I only know how it worked when we applied for my Dad, here in Arizona. He had lots of investments, and a living trust....so he had a LOT of money to spend down before Medicaid would be approved and start paying his Memory Care facility rent. So we spent $75.000 of his money for his facility, as a private pay, until he was eligible. The spend down money can basically only be counted if it is for medical needs, burial expense, like a pre paid funeral plan and to improve the home. In the end, once approved for Medicaid, Dad was not allowed to ever have more than $2000 in cash available to him....savings, or checking account etc. We had to cash in all IRAs that were in his name first....and we had to take his name off as beneficiary of any life insurance policies. So basically, on paper, Dad was a pauper. There was some kind of mathematical formula that determined how much of the assets could go to Mom and things had to be changed to her name only in the living trust. I believe she was entitled to have $108,000 in investment assets, and could still own her house and one car. But we did have to sell Dad's truck...and eventually we had to take Dad's name off the house and the remaining car, and just have them in her name, so they would not be seen as an asset for him. We had an eldercare attorney who helped with all these decisions and knew how to do the applications. Once he was approved, he was assigned a case manager, who came out to visit him and me at his facility every three months to determine if his physical and mental conditions were the same and whether his care needs had increased. This case worker is someone who really works FOR you...not against you. My Dad was on Medicaid in Arizona for almost two years before he died....and they never did come back asking for more information, or for all the bank statements etc, to be sent in at various times. They never asked for another piece of information after they approved him. His 'rent' copay was $200/mo. Medicaid paid about $3000/mo for his facility rent, and paid for certain medical supplies and meds he was taking. Medicare and his Medicare supplement picked up left over expenses. The main hassle in the application process was that IF they didn't get everything they needed by the end of one month, it all had to be submitted again the following month.....so if one little thing was not done, you would be resubmitting the latest month of bank statements, and resubmit another month of expenses that they wanted to see. We were resubmitting for 4 months, over and over, because one person would say we needed to turn in something and that was all, but the next person looking at it, would add on a couple other things to send it that we didn't know about. Got to be a headache and feeling as though it were a game being played just to prolong making a decision. Once the application is accepted, Medicaid coverage starts at the first of the following month. There is no back payment. If you can afford it, I certainly recommend the help of the attorney and their office staff. I hope this helps!

Go to an estate planner or eldercare attorney with Medicaid experience. You might have to buy a prepaid burial plan or policy, and the limit might vary. The "look back" period for transferring funds varies too. It is complicated and no single answer is right for every situation in every state!

Why do you need Medicaid? You are old enough to receive Medicare, have money in the bank and a weekly paycheck. You are also at the age where you can receive full social security pension and still keep your full paycheck.

~ I would remove the money from the account. Then wait a few months. They are going to ask for past bank statements. When they see you've removed the money, they're going to ask what you did with it, and how you spent it, they may even ask you to prove what you did with it.
Also, if you have a life insurance policy, they may have you sell it (if it's whole life). If it's term, they'll tell you to get rid of it. They did that to me, when my son needed emergency surgery. That took five month to get approval for.
This is a very long process in my state (NY). Like everyone is saying, every state has different rules .... inquire before applying.

Money for funeral expenses would have to be in an irrevocable funeral trust. In michigan you are allowed to have 2000 but other states have different limits. If you are applying for medicaid to cover medical and not nursing home that is different also. Check with you Depart if Human Services. Some states expanded Medicaid under Obama care and that varies from state to state also. Also you can contact your Area Agency On Aging they help low income people navigate the resources available in your state.

Reverse roles - I know your pain. My moms was over 130 pages for initial NH application. But before you box up all & take to a storage unit or up into the rafters of your garage.......find out if your state does an annual renewal. If so, some of those very documents will need to be resubmitted every year as part of the renewal! Nothing but fun there!

First renewal letter came about a year & 2 months after mom was approved. The repeats were insurance & funeral policies, citizenship plus the new for the year: tax assessor on her house, current month bank statement & 3 months prior (all pages with cancelled checks), dividend or royality info, new awards letters (from SSA & retirement so they can determine if the SOC needs to get adjusted). Plus a mutipage questionnaire & an "achinowledgement of merp" statement. For even more fun in this, the letter required all to be submitted within 14 days of inside letter and always every year there was a delay from the date of the letter inside and the actual postmark. Moms first renewal by the time I open the mail was at 30 days & about to go into the ineligibility review queue. Yeah just another hurdle in the Medicaid maze. From then on i kept a binder going to place all paperwork that would be needed for the annual renewal & faxed all from FedEx office so I had a transmission report that it was received. Fax with transmission report or certified mail is good as it stops any blowback "we didn't get crap" from the state.

Meducaiad is a joint federal & state program in which each state administers medicaid uniquely but within an overall federal guideline. Then within that the different Medicaid programs - NH LTC, community based waiver, PACE, etc - can have different qualifications. The states have details on rhier websites as to what programs are available and qualifications.

By &large for Medicaid, you have be low-income or mpoverished or a "special status" group that qualifies outside of that.

If you find the 5K in savings takes you over eligibility. getting a pre-need pre-paid No Cash Value funeral/burial policy is a simple & easy spend down to do. FH know how to do these that are Medicaid compliant. Btw 5k will not fully pay for a traditional funeral.

You are allowed to have some money for burial, but not that large of an amount. At least in my state, that would disqualify you. My attorney told me that if I was one penny over, they would drop me from Medicaid. I would ask an attorney in your state.

It all depends on your State, assets, etc. Do you own a house, thats taken into consideration also. Buriel expenses can be prepaid to qualify if you have no other assets. Please get professional help to find out all the ins and outs. I am trying to get a medicaid waiver for home care for my Mom . I just went through all of the paperwork back 5 years. Omg what a job, all bank statements, her birth certificate, ss card, medical bills, spouses death certificate, ss, pension, you name it, they want it, and 5 years worth! Its tough when they are in their 90's to find all of that stuff but I did it. Now the 3-5 month wait it on to hopefully get some help here. good luck