June 10, 2021 at 1:12 p.m.
Cass board hears report on long-term care
Currently two county employees oversee long-term care cases for 260 people who are in nursing homes, assisted living facilities or receiving supportive care in their own home with county financial help.
As long as a person remains in their own home, they can receive financial help for care services and still retain ownership of their home and one car and their personal belongings, Reed said. Once they leave their home, the state can seek reimbursement for their care expenses from their home sale, she said.
Generally anyone who qualifies for medical assistance also would qualify for long-term care financial help, she explained.
A single person cannot have more than $3,000 in assets, she said. For a married couple, the asset limit is $6,000.
The current look-back period for assets is five years.
If the person seeking help to pay for long term care costs gave their home or a part interest in it to a relative or friend more recently than 60 months ago, the county financial worker uses a prescribed formula that includes the person's age/life expectancy, the appraised value of the home at the time it was given away, equity value of the property among the factors to calculate the value of the home asset that was given.
The financial worker then uses a statewide formula for average skilled nursing facility monthly costs to compare. She adds the number of months of nursing home charges it would take to equal the home asset value the applicant gave away. The applicant would qualify for nursing home payments from the county then after the number of months passed that equaled the adjusted asset home value.
Once people are admitted to the program, the financial workers continue to track each client through the time they receive care to be sure they are receiving services to meet their needs.
If during the time they are receiving long term care benefits, the client should receive an inheritance or otherwise gain a new asset, their county benefit would be suspended until that money was spend down to the standard $3,000 or $6,000 asset limit.
In other Health, Human and Veterans Services business Tuesday the board received a report indicating expenditures in that department through July ran almost exactly at budget projections.
Out of home child care costs, however, continue to exceed budget projections. After 58 percent of the year, those expenditures were at 86 percent of budget projections. The county share of those costs ran 94 percent of the expected full year amount.
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