Medicaid Treatment of the Home: Determining Eligibility and Repayment for Long-Term Care

This policy brief is one of five commissioned by HHS/ASPE on Medicaid eligibility policies for long-term care benefits. This brief provides a synopsis of how the home is treated in determining Medicaid eligibility for recipients of long-term care services and the circumstances under which Medicaid may recover spending no behalf of the recipient from equity held in real property. Broad flexibility is conferred on states to implement generic federal Medicaid rules, resulting in considerable state-to-state variation in how homes are treated in specific circumstances. State-specific insights and comparisons are subjects for future study. [11 PDF pages]