A lot of folks say, “Chris, what do I do to prepare for a Medicaid application?” I call the Medicaid application an audit because that’s basically what it is. The state wants to review everything before they chip in or help pay the bill. When you go to the application, it triggers that five years, and everybody assumes the five years is a penalty period. It’s not. I don’t care if you do planning or you do no planning. Everybody who sits across the desk from Ohio and files a Medicaid application is subject to that five year audit. So it’s called the look back, and that’s all it does is it gives Ohio the right to look back for five years and say, where’s the house? Where’s the car? Where’s the money? Why do we have to chip in?
So you’re going to have to prepare for that audit. When we give our client a list of things to bring back, it’s a page and a half. It’s deeds, legal documents, statements for the last year or two, insurance information, income information, Medicare information, healthcare insurance. So you have to be very prepared. You can get this list from the state, the Department of Johnson Family Services. Many facilities have a list of things that they know you need to gather for a Medicaid application, and you want to get started on it if you’re working towards Medicaid, because you have to be prepared. The more prepared you are at the application, the better circumstance, the better, quicker approval. If you don’t have everything, they’ll just keep coming back and asking, asking, asking. And sometimes they can just deny it because you didn’t provide it or didn’t get it to them in time. So it is an audit. You want to be prepared. We can provide the list for you if necessary, but check with your advisors.