Nursing Home Trap

If you co-own a mutual fund or other securities that are registered in joint names with someone who needs to go into a nursing home, Medicaid will treat the institutionalized person's share of the fund as belonging to the patient and require that his/her share be spent before Medicaid eligibility kicks in.

Solution: Do not put an elderly person's name on securities or real estate, since you could end up losing half of the investments.

A different rule applies to joint bank accounts. These are presumed to be wholly owned by the Medicaid applicant unless the "healthy" owner can prove otherwise.

Estate Planning
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