| A pooled income trust question:
CLIENT QUESTION:
Is there ever a time when applying for Community Medicaid and joining a pooled income trust is NOT the best choice based on your level of income and assets? Can you lose money by putting money in the trust if you are now paying your bills and home care bills yourself?
MY RESPONSE:
A pooled trust is a trust, managed by a not-for-profit, where you can send your excess income to protect it from Medicaid when receiving care at home. If you apply for Medicaid home care (Community Medicaid), you cannot have income in excess of $1697 per month. If you have more than this amount then you must spend it down each month on MEDICAL EXPENSES ONLY. In such a case, your medical expenses would eat up all your money and none would be left to pay other household bills.
Instead, you can divert your excess income to a pooled trust each month and the trust in turn can pay your household bills. This is awesome! In this way you will get Medicaid to pay your medical bills and ALL of your income will be available to pay ALL of your monthly household bills.
But beware, if your income going into the trust is greater than the amount you need to pay monthly household bills, then income will accumulate each month in the pooled trust. Upon your death, if the pooled trust contains any money in your account, then the trust or charity keeps the money. Therefore, if you have very high income, we have to calculate if it makes sense to participate in the pooled trust. This will be decided on a case-by-case basis. |
