Indiana’s Medicaid program is only accessible to those with real financial needs. You typically have to show that you have both limited income and limited personal assets to get benefits.
Usually, your home will be one of the few assets that won’t count against you when you apply for Medicaid, but that doesn’t mean that your house or other property is safe after you start it.
When you die, the Medicaid estate recovery program could bring a claim against your estate for the cost of any care that you received during your lifetime as a Medicaid recipient.
How Medicaid estate recovery works
When you die, any assets left in your name are subject to claims by your creditors. For many older adults, Medicaid will be the biggest or sole creditor making a claim against their estates.
The Indiana Medicaid estate recovery program can place a lien against your home or compel its liquidation to repay the benefits you received. The program could also claim any money in a bank account in your name even if there is another person listed as the co-owner of the account or you had a transfer on death designation on the account that assigned it to someone else as soon as you died.
As long as there are still assets in your name, Medicaid can continue to demand repayment before your executor can distribute anything to your loved ones. Only with proper planning can you limit how much of your estate Medicaid will consume. Planning ahead to qualify for Medicaid and preserve your assets when you die will protect you as you age and the people you love after your death.