Medicaid Applications - New York

Even though Medicaid is a joint federal and state program, the states operate the program through the county you reside in on a day-to-day basis. Applications are made to the local designated office for your county. That means you must contact a local office in your state to apply for Medicaid.

When you apply for Medicaid you will have to:

Fill out an application form

Provide documentation to verify your identity and other general information.

Provide income and asset information about you and your spouse and sometimes your household.

When the State finds you eligible for Medicaid, you will have to go through a functional eligibility assessment in order to receive long-term care services.

You may apply for Medicaid coverage yourself, or you may designate another person, such as a family member, your attorney, or a friend, to apply for you.

If someone else apples for you, that person should be familiar with your situation, be able to answer all eligibility questions, and have access to your financial records. In some instances the state may also require a face-to-face interview.

If you own a home, the state may ask you to document the current 'fair market value' of the home and any loans for the home, such as mortgages or equity loans. The state may ask for the following documents:

A current tax bill

A real estate appraisal

Copies of your mortgage statement

The State may ask for this documentation because, even though your home is not counted as an asset when determining your eligibility for Medicaid, how much equity you have in your home can affect whether Medicaid will pay for your long-term care services.

If the value of your assets went down a lot within the past five years, the state may ask you to explain what happened to the assets. In particular, the state will want to know whether you gave away any of your assets in the past five years. They are looking for uncompensated transfers.

If you are married, and your spouse enters a nursing home, then you may be given a booklet that can guide you on how much of your assets you may keep. The spousal impoverishment rules are designed to help keep the spouse living in the community from being impoverished and becoming a public charge. Without the spousal impoverishment rules, the state would consider the couple's joint assets as belonging entirely to the institutionalized spouse. In addition to the spousal impoverishment rules, there are additional protections on the community spouses' income. These rules help ensure that the community spouse will have income to pay for living expenses.