The Medicaid Estate Recovery program applies to all individuals who received any services for which Medicaid had paid and those services were rendered after the recipient reached the age of 55 who are deceased and not survived by a surviving spouse, minor child or adult disabled child.
One of the most common misconceptions of the estate recovery program is that a recipient must be a resident of a nursing home for at least six months before being subject to estate recovery. There is in fact no minimum time for receiving service, either nursing home care or home and community based services. This confusion results from an old rule where a nursing home resident is asked to sell the homestead if there is not a community spouse or other exempt situation after six months.
