Law Offices of Mary P. Kulvinskas

Medi-Cal Planning

Medi-Cal is a combined federal and California state program designed to help pay the cost of long term nursing care for public assistance recipients and other low-income persons. Since it is a need-based program, Medi-Cal recipients must pass certain eligibility requirements. More specifically, to qualify for Medi-Cal the recipient must demonstrate that he or she has limited resources available.

Medi-Cal classifies property as exempt and non-exempt. Exempt property does not affect eligibility. Conversely, non-exempt property precludes eligibility. The process of Medi-Cal planning seeks to reclassify non-exempt assets into exempt ones, thereby demonstrating that the recipient has limited resources available. This is no small feet as the Medi-Cal area of law is extremely complicated and not a bit confused. For instance, gifting non-exempt resources may render a person ineligible for a period of time running from the date of transfer up to 30 months under MCCA 90. Besides the asset analysis outlined here, one must also conduct an income analysis. That is, one may only “earn” a limited amount of income in order to qualify for Medi-Cal.

The above is extremely simplified to begin an explanation of this type of estate planning. Perhaps the most important thing to take away however, is that a surprising number of people could qualify for Medi-Cal coverage if they would only do some Medi-Cal planning. Even those with estates worth hundreds of thousands of dollars may qualify. Given the high cost of long term nursing care (usually $4,000-$6,000 per month), an estate may be entirely spent down without proper Medi-Cal planning. With the aging population, this will increasingly be an extremely important area of planning.

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