Opinion ID: 2570824
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Fischer's 1998 Application for Medicaid

Text: The 1998 application required the Fischers to list their nonexempt countable assets owned at the time Donald entered long-term care (1996). The application stated: Do not list items that are exempt. The application also required the Fischers to provide the equity value of those countable assets. The Fischers listed the farm property as nonexempt, countable property and included the equity value of the property. The application required the listing of countable real property, liquid assets, nonexempt countable motor vehicles, life insurance polices, and all other assets. The application did not specifically require income to be listed as another asset. After the listing of countable assets at the time the applicant entered long-term care, the application provided a formula for computing the spouse resource allowance. The formula was one-half of the total equity value of the nonexempt countable resources owned at the time the client entered long-term care. If the value is $15,384, then $15,384 shall be the amount of the community spouse resource allowance. If the value is over $76,740, then the $76,740 figure is used. Because the Fischers calculated that half of the countable assets was $97,558.72, the spousal allowance was $76,740. The next section of the application required the applicant to list the resources owned at the date of the application. Here, the Fischers no longer owned what they considered to be countable real estate, so they did not list any nonexempt countable real estate. All the Fischers' nonexempt countable assets at the date of the application were liquid assets, totaling $54,387.45. The final section of the application took the total equity value of currently owned (date of application) nonexempt countable assets (which the Fischers had calculated at $54,387.45) and subtracted from that amount the spousal allowance, which had been calculated at $76,740. The result was less than zero, so, according to the Fischers' application, Donald was eligible for Medicaid.