My father has been recently diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer. He currently lives alone out in the middle of nowhere in upstate New York, in a county with few aging resources, hospitals, home health aides, etc. (And a hour away from me.) Although the treatment has been successful in slowing the cancer spread, it has taken its toll on him. He is now extremely weak, and his mobility has declined to the point we expect he will be wheelchair and/or bed-bound soon. He is a retired teacher and has a small monthly pension, but no other assets. Should he need skilled nursing, he will need Medicaid. Based on our research, we think he will have a serious penalty for non-allowable spending during the 5-year lookback period. Once we realized what was happening, we took control of the spending, but still estimate at least 4 months of penalty if we can’t find the money to reimburse the Medicaid trust. He has been falling recently and it seems just a matter of time before he is in the hospital/rehab.
My question is: what happens if he has medical emergency and ends up exhausting his medicare hospitalization/rehab benefits? If the hospital assesses he needs to be discharged to a skilled nursing facility, but he can’t private pay and is not eligible for Medicaid (because of the penalty period), what happens to him?
But I would speak to a Certified Elder Care attorney about all of this before jumping to any conclusions based on research you've done yourself on Medicaid rules in N.Y. The state has some of THE most abundant social service programs I've ever seen, so let the attorney tell you. This is NOT a DIY project, get all the facts up front.
Good luck.