Lien Fear Eases with New Bill
by Elderly Ohioans enrolled in or considering entry into the state’s PASSPORT in-home medical care program soon will no longer have to worry that the state might put a lien on their house to recover care costs after their death.
The welfare-reform bill that the governor signed Wednesday exempts passport recipients’ estates from state claims after their death for the Medicaid money spent on them.
The state decided to enforce federal guidelines Jan. 1 for the Medicaid health insurance program for the needy. The rules require states to get what money they can from estates after the recipient and spouse have died.
The intent was to hold down the program’s rising cost.
The recovery program was to apply to both nursing home residents, whose room, board and medical care are paid by Medicaid, and to PASSPORT clients, whose home-delivered medical services also are paid for by Medicaid.
Angry PASSPORT clients objected, saying they would not have accepted help if they had known it might cost them their home. Others asked their pending applications be withdrawn, or said they would not apply to the program.
“We haven’t seen any major impact in recent months” from the recovery requirement, said Doug McGarry, who heads the Dayton region’s Agency on Aging, which operates PASSPORT in Montgomery, Greene and Clark counties. “We see maybe one case a month where someone chooses not to enroll, rather than give up their house. We have no way of knowing how many haven’t applied because they feared loss of their house.”
Now those in PASSPORT, a much cheaper alternative to expensive nursing home care, are having that fear removed by the exemption.
But there’s considerable resentment from those who still face the possibility of a lien on their estate to recover all or part of what Medicaid spent for nursing home care.
Doris Ferguson, 65, of Enon shudders at the thought, as she explores ways of obtaining care for her husband, 72 , who has Alzheimer’s disease.
She had been caring for him at home, but arthritis and loss of balance because of an ear infection now prevent her from doing so. Her married adult children in the area can’t manage the required time from their families and jobs.
Ferguson said that since Medicare coverage for nursing home care ran out in early August, she has been paying the $106 a day bill at the Collinswood Nursing Home in Fairborn, plus cost of his medication. They have no long-term care health insurance because it’s too costly for them. “I don’t mind paying for his care. I do mind them putting a lien on our house.”
The attorney general’s office has said repeatedly the state is not going to put a lien on an estate until after both spouses have died.
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