Page 75

MISSISSIPPI DIVISION OF MEDICAID Eligibility Policy and Procedures Manual CHAPTER 200A – Income: ABD Categories Page |75 Effective Month: July 2025 Treatment of Dividends and Interest Count dividends or interest as income or excluded income based on the following criteria: • When the source of the dividends or interest is a countable resource, the dividends or interest generated is excluded income for programs with an asset test. (NOTE: The Medicare Cost Sharing programs (QMB, SLMB, and QI) do not have an asset test so the exclusion does not apply to them.) • When the source of the dividends or interest is a resource which is excluded under federal statute, the dividends or interest generated is excluded income. Examples are Agent Orange payments, Austrian Social Insurance payments, Japanese American and Aleutian Restitution payments, Radiation Exposure Compensation Trust Fund payments, Ricky Ray Hemophilia Relief funds, payments to Veterans’ Children with Certain Birth Defects, etc. The treatment of dividends and interest is included in the discussion of each income source in this chapter. • When the source of the dividends or interest is a resource excluded by the Social Security Act, dividends or interest generated on the excluded resource may or may not be excluded. Treatment is specific to the excluded resource. Some examples are burial funds and burial spaces, relocation assistance, PASS funds, gifts to children with life-threatening diseases, victim’s compensation, grants, scholarships, fellowships and gifts, etc. The treatment of dividends and interest is included in the discussion for each income source in this chapter. • Under liberalized income policy, interest, dividend and royalty income or any combination that does not exceed $5 per month per individual is excluded. • In post-eligibility budgeting to determine Medicaid Income, recurring income that varies in amount or frequency, such as dividends and interest, is averaged if the client is income-eligible in the month the payment is received without averaging. Refer to the Institutionalization chapter for more information.