My mother has dementia. She was diagnosed in 2015. In the last year she started to go down hill. We were paying caregivers with her money as she did not qualify for any help from Medicaid as she has to much money. We are now trying to place her and have applied for Medicaid. We paid the caregivers cash and kept all our withdrawal slips. Medicaid is now questioning this because we paid cash. What can we do? Can what we paid be considered a gift to each caregiver. Will this help with the Medicaid look back.
if the money went to PAY her caregivers then that is a legitimate expense. Money used toward her care is allowed. So don’t tell Medicaid it was a gift. You may however run into a problem if you didn’t have a contract with the caregivers. But I am sure others will chime in here. I think it would be worse if you told Medicaid the money was gifted.