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MEDICAL SERVICES – APPENDIX N, FAMILY MEDICALLY NEEDY RESOURCE AND INCOME LEVELS 02-24-16 Page 7 of 19 The term "funeral agreements" includes burial insurance, pre-paid funeral arrangement contracts, and life insurance policies issued by funeral homes. The term "current equity value" is defined as the value of the agreement, which can legally be converted, to cash by the client. If a funeral agreement has no current equity value, then it is not considered as an available resource. For example, a burial insurance policy with no cash surrender value or an irrevocable pre-paid funeral contract have no current equity value to the client. E. Resources Considered in Full Except for property specifically disregarded under section “Resources to be Disregarded” or considered according to section “Resources Considered With Special Exemptions or Exclusions”, the equity value of any other real or personal property available to the assistance unit will be considered in full. When an applicant/recipient has joint ownership of a resource, their ownership interest and the availability of the resource to the assistance unit must be determined. If the resource is available to the unit, the net equity must then be determined. Resources of an alien’s sponsor and the sponsor’s spouse must be considered as fully available to the alien and his or her family.  NOTE: If excluded resources are commingled with countable resources, the full value of the resources will be countable. F. Requesting a Legal Opinion on Resource Ownership or Availability There are situations in which the client’s ownership interest or ability to access the resource are not clearly evident. In such situations, it may be necessary to request a legal opinion from the DHS Office of Chief Counsel (OCC). All such requests for a legal opinion will be submitted through the DCO Office of Program Planning and Development (OPPD) according to the following procedures. 1. The caseworker will scan the documents for the legal opinion request in the proper order into the eDoctus library, “County Request for Medicaid Decision.” The proper order to scan documents into eDoctus can be found on the OPPD/OCC legal document review checklist, which can be obtained from a Program Eligibility Analyst (PEA). 2. This will trigger an email message to the Program Eligibility Analysts (PEA) for the area in which the county office is located. 3. The PEAs of the specified area will check the “County Request for Medicaid Decision” library on eDoctus to determine where the request originated. 4. The appropriate PEA will review the eDoctus documentation based on the guidelines provided by OPPD/OCC legal document checklist to ensure that the documentation is complete, in the proper order and ready for submission to OPPD.