MassHealth: Medicaid in Massachusetts

by: Brian E. Barreira, Esq.

Under federal Medicaid law and MassHealth regulations, the past five (5) years of a MassHealth applicant’s assets are scrutinized to determine whether the applicant has made any disqualifying transfers.  As the term indicates, a disqualifying transfer makes the MassHealth applicant ineligible for MassHealth.

A disqualifying transfer is usually a gift (or something similar to a gift) that the MassHealth applicant made in the previous 5 years.   Any transfer that occurred more than 5 years ago (even just 5 years plus one day ago) is outside the Medicaid lookback period, and cannot be considered a disqualifying transfer.  A disqualifying transfer, however,  is not limited to gifts.  To put it as simply as possible, if the MassHealth applicant had ownership of anything on one day and did not have the same ownership the next day, a disqualifying transfer may have occurred.  Thus, any sale for less than fair market value can be a disqualifying transfer.  Paying a child or other relative for services, or even reimbursing them for expenses, can be treated by MassHealth as a disqualifying transfer.  Unrepaid loans can also be considered disqualifying transfers.

Sometimes the lawyers representing MassHealth make unfair stretches of the law.  For example, should a  bad investment be treated as a disqualifying transfer.  In one case that I handled that took 5 years to win, the MassHealth lawyers saw that a MassHealth’s applicant’s husband had made a risky investment that dropped in value.  Those lawyers attempted to convince a judge that he should have foreseen that the investment would drop in value, and therefore he had essentially made a disqualifying transfer.   Fortunately, a full 5 years after the MassHealth application had initially been filed, a Superior Court judge overturned the decision of a fair hearing officer who had sided with MassHeath’s silly argument.