Effective Date: April 1, 2019

Previous Policy

Medicaid applicants and recipients must cooperate with the Office of Recovery Services/Child Support Services (ORS/CSS) to establish paternity and obtain medical support from any responsible absent parent of a child for whom they are applying or who is receiving Medicaid.

Adult applicants must indicate on the application whether they intend to cooperate with establishing paternity and obtaining medical support.

Adult recipients may be sanctioned from receiving Medicaid if they fail to cooperate with Medical Support Enforcement procedures. A recipient who is sanctioned from Medicaid for non-cooperation is not eligible for any other type of Medicaid including institutional, Waiver Medicaid orMedicare Cost-Sharing programs.

For Medicaid, parents are not required to assign their rights to child support payments. Households that receive Medicaid, but do not receive FEP cash assistance, do not have to turn child support payments over to ORS/CSS and any child support collected by ORS/CSS will be forwarded to the parent. Child support payments are not counted as income for MAGI-based eligibility groups. Child support payments are counted as unearned income in determining eligibility for non-MAGI-based Medicaid programs, which includes medically needy programs. (See Sec. 415-5 )

Natural or adoptive parents who do not live in the same household as their children are still responsible for the support of their children until each child reaches age eighteen or is emancipated by marriage or court order. A referral to ORS/CSS must be done on an absent natural or adoptive parent of children who are applying for or receiving Medicaid. However, the natural parent of a child who has been adopted is no longer responsible for the child once the parental rights have been relinquished.

Step-parents who no longer live in the same household as their step-children or who are no longer married to the biological or adoptive parent of their step-children are not responsible for the support of their step-children. Do not do a referral to ORS/CSS on absent step-parents.