Get Organized Before Filing Your Medicaid Application (Part 2 of 2)

In the vast majority of cases with my clients one or more adult children of the Medicaid applicant are the ones filing the application. And if mom or dad has not kept organized financial records and lacks the mental capacity to provide reliable information then the kids are often left in the dark regarding where mom or dad's accounts are held, the size of the assets, whether or not there is a life insurance policy, etc.

Sometimes the best solution (after scouring the household records and safe deposit box) is to simply mointor mom or dad's mail where statements and other correspondence from financial institutions will eventually arrive. Working with the local post office to re-direct mail to your own address may be appropriate in some circumstances.

Although the statements and cancelled checks represent the lion's share of information that you will end up sending to the State, they will also ask for copies of various demographic items such as a Social Security card, Medicare card, health insurance cards, birth and marriage certificates, documents to verify sources of income, trusts for which you are the beneficiary and a laundry list of other miscellaneous items. The importance of having all of these documents as organized as possible prior to submitting your Medicaid application is difficult to overstate.

One other organizational tip to offer is to make copies of everything you send to the State (I hate to sound like a broken record, but scanning all of your Medicaid application documents makes this a non-issue). It is absolutely not unprecedented for the State to misplace documents. If this happens and you have neglected to keep copies then you are back to square-one in the information-gathering process.