Saturday, April 22, 2017

Medi-Cal Has Announced 2017 Average Private Pay Rate for Long Term Care in California by Kevin Staker

Medi-Cal Has Announced 2017 Average Private Pay Rate for Long Term Care in California by Kevin Staker

The Average Private Pay Rate ("APPR") for 2017 for Medi-Cal, the California equivalent of Medic-Aid, has been announced.  The amount is $8,515.  The authority/confirmation for this amount can be found at www.canhr.org/medcal/PDFs/RateCOLA.pdf.

The APPR is the average amount the California Department of Health Services believes nursing homes charge each month for a patient in long term care in a facility.  The APPR is also very important in planning to qualify for Medi-Cal to pay for long term care for an individual in a nursing home.  If you give $8,515 to an individual, not your spouse or a disabled child, it will result in one month of ineligibility from Medi-Cal.

Hence, any gift causes ineligibility for months based on the amount of the gift divided by the $8,515.  The strange quirk in California law is the period of ineligibility is the number of months rounded down.  Thus, a gift of $8,514.99 or less will result in no period of ineligibility.  This is a tremendous loophole. 

An individual who needs to go into a nursing home can give away under $8,515 per account per day per individual and it will not cause any period of ineligibility. 

For more information go to the Medi-Cal planning page of the website of Kevin Staker at StakerLaw.  This page is found at .

By Kevin Staker

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