Medicaid Estate Recovery

 Ohio's Medicaid Estate Recovery (MER) applies to the estates of persons age 55 or older who received Medicaid long-term care assistance (in nursing homes or through a Medicaid waiver program). The amount MER will seek to recover is the total cost Medicaid paid for the deceased.

MER applies to all assets titled to the deceased as of the moment before passing, and includes things such as interest in home titled to the deceased, life estate interests, financial accounts titled to the deceased, cash value of life insurance policies, survivorship assets, etc. It includes any real or personal property the deceased had any interest in at the time of passing.

MER will delay seeking recovery of assets if a spouse is still alive, or there is a child under age 21, blind or diabled. MER may also waive recovery in situations that would create undue hardship - in cases where there is a permanently disabled child, or where recovery would deny a beneficiary of the basic necessities, such as food and shelter.

If the deceased utilized long-term care insurance, MER will exempt from recovery an amount equal in value to the long-term care insurance paid out.