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West Virginia Income Maintenance Manual Chapter 24

West Virginia Income Maintenance Manual Page 49 Chapter 24 Long Term Care

In determining whether payments can or cannot be made from a trust, the Worker must take into account restrictions included in the trust on how payments can be made; the Worker must not take into account when payments can be made. When a trust provides, in some manner, that a payment can be made, even though that payment may be sometime in the future, the trust must be treated as providing that payment can be made from the trust. ➢ Undue Hardship There is a hardship provision for LTC Medicaid which allows DOHS to exclude a trust when counting it results in undue hardship for the client. All decisions about undue hardship are made by the Undue Hardship Waiver Committee. Any requests for such a determination are submitted in writing and must show complete details about the undue hardship which will result. See "Undue Hardship" in Section 5.1 and Section 24.8.2.B.7 below. 24.8.2.B.4 Transferred Resources Returned When the client reports assets transferred for less than FMV have been returned to the client, the Worker must verify this information. Any return of assets must be to the client rather than to another individual on his behalf or paid directly to the long term care facility. When the transferred assets have been returned to the client in full, no penalty is applied. If a penalty has already been applied, a retroactive adjustment to the beginning of the penalty period is required. However, the client must always be asset eligible as of the first day of the month for any months the transfer penalty period is adjusted. When all transferred assets have been returned in full, the returned assets must be counted in determining eligibility for LTC services during the retroactive period and ongoing, unless the asset would have otherwise been considered exempt. Advance notice is required before closing other ongoing Medicaid coverage. The client’s contribution to cost of care must also be determined. For new applications or new transfers reported after August 1, 2018, if the transferred assets are returned only in part, adjustments to the applied penalty period are not allowed. The applied penalty period continues uninterrupted for the full duration originally calculated. The returned assets are, however, considered in determining eligibility for all other Medicaid coverage groups during the transfer penalty. Advance notice is required before closing other ongoing Medicaid coverage. Return of Transferred Funds Example: Ms. Daisy transferred all the money from her savings account to her son in February. The Worker calculates the