What Is The Community Spouse Resource Allowance?

If you or your spouse are going to be moving into a nursing care facility, it is important for you to understand the community spouse resource allowance. This can help you with financial planning as you determine how to cover expensive nursing home care services. 

Parman & Easterday can provide you with the personalized help you need to make sure nursing home care is covered without causing undue financial hardship to your spouse or causing you to lose the ability to leave a legacy.  To find out more about the assistance our firm can offer, give us a call today.

What is the Community Spouse Resource Allowance?

The community spouse resource allowance is an important protection granted by the federal government to ensure that when one spouse moves into a nursing home, the other spouse is not left destitute due to the high costs associated with nursing home care.

Nursing homes are very expensive and aren’t covered by Medicare.  Most people fail to secure private long-term health care insurance to cover or defray the cost.  Medicaid may cover nursing home care, but the benefits are means-tested and most seniors won’t qualify for coverage until they have spent most of their assets and essentially impoverished themselves.

If one spouse is moving to a nursing home and the other is not, the government does not require the couple to spend everything they own, whether individually or jointly, before Medicaid coverage will kick in. To do so would would leave the spouse who is not moving to the nursing home with nothing to live on.

The community spouse resource allowance (CRSA) is an allowance that was put into place to make sure the spouse who remains in the community is able to keep enough assets to be comfortable, at least tosom extent. The allowance is available to the husband or wife of a Medicaid applicant.  It is a specific amount of money and property, currently not to exceed $123,600, that doesn’t have to be spent on nursing home care in order for the spouse who is moving to a nursing home to become eligible for Medicaid.

A couple automatically qualifies for the community spouse resource allowance when the applicant enters into a nursing home. The allowance is based on the value of the couple’s resources on the date the spouse is admitted to the nursing home care facility. The allowance equals one-half of the couple’s resources, excluding those that are exempt under Medicaid rules, but not to exceed $123,600 in 2018.  There are rare instances in which a greater amount may be allotted to the community spouse, but this requires a hearing and the services of a qualified elder law attorney.

Parman & Easterday can help you understand how the community spouse resource allowance works and what amount of money you or your spouse may be able to keep should one of you move into a nursing home. We can also help you put a Medicaid plan in place to protect the maximum amount of your combined assets.

Getting Help from a Medicaid Planning Attorney

Medicaid planning attorneys at Parman & Easterday will work closely with you to protect as much as possible of your valuable resources. We know how stressful it is when your loved one needs to move into a nursing home and we understand that financial worries can compound your fears about the future. We work hard to help ensure that you, your family, and your hard-earned wealth are as protected as legally possible.

To find out more about how a compassionate and knowledgeable member of our legal team can help you, join us for a free seminar. You can also give us a call today at (405) 843-6100 or (913) 385-9400 or contact us online to get the personalized support you need.