Nursing Homes and Credit Card Debt- what happens now?

I hope this is the correct forum to ask this fairly common question.

Mother in nursing home, gets a small pension, social security, and Medicaid. Has been there a year. No assets, house in my name for years. NH gets her pension and SS, except for $50 a month.

Mother has a balance on a credit card that built up over the years, less than $5000, I have been making payments monthly from mother’s small savings account. Now Medicaid and the nursing home want the money from that account. They are owed the money, we have been holding onto it for an emergency, but I will have to give it to them.

That means I will then close out mother’s small savings account and the credit card company can’t be paid any more (about $100 a month).

What should I do? Write the credit card company a letter? How badly will they harrass me (with phone calls)? Should I call a lawyer? I was told if mother has no assets, the credit card company will just have to eat the debt.

Talk to a real lawyer, which I’m not, but as long as you haven’t paid any of your mother’s debts with your own money, you cut up the card and send it back to the company with a terse letter saying that the card holder cannot pay the debt.

If they call you, you handle it like any other debt collector - notify them that all communication must be done in writing, require them to send proof of the debt, and so on. Don’t ignore it, but don’t pay them anything or promise to pay anything either.

What you were told is essentially correct - the CC company is out of luck. Social Security cannot be garnished, your mother won’t have any savings or assets, and all her pension will go to the nursing home.

My best to your mom. I assume the nursing home will not allow debt collectors to harass her, and no doubt the nursing home has experience in this matter. They may even have a lawyer on retainer.

Regards,
Shodan

Why would you think you can inherit your mother’s debt? Unless you consigned something, I don’t think that can’t happen.

What do you imagine will happen to the balance should she die? The credit card company will just eat the debt, I believe. In either case, I’d imagine.

She has no assets and no income they can attach, why would they pay to pursue her?

Do see a lawyer quickly about this. Like, tomorrow.

I think your mother can make a “gift” of a certain amount to you and other adult children. (Check your state laws with a real attorney.) That money can be kept for her emergencies and/or other items.

My parents did this with my dad’s mom – she made “gifts” to her adult sons, who held on to the money for her use for things like getting her hair cut and buying clothing and other necessities.

And as Shodan says, do NOT pay the credit card company or promise them anything.

ETA, I wouldn’t ask the advice of the nursing home’s attorney. Conflict of interest. Find your own.

Check out your state bar association. Many of them have a program where you can meet with a lawyer for a short amount of time for free. I did this concerning a similar question and was quite satisfied with the help I got.

Contact the social worker at the nursing home and tell them what you just told us. They will be very familiar with this issue and will be able to guide you appropriately.

I think I will do that, I have to go up there and give them a check for what is owed, anyway. I’ll ask about the credit card debt.

I realize I am not liable for that debt, but I’m afraid the debt collectors will be calling me day and night.

We had a similar situation in my family–we sent a letter to the company advising she moved into the nursing home and had no assets to pay.

As I recall, they asked the nursing home for a verification, and that was the end of the matter. No harassment, no nasty phone calls, no nothing, and no need for a lawyer. (It’s been seven years since she defaulted, and four years since she died, with no further contact.) This probably depends on exactly who the creditor is, but this was one of the major national credit card issuers.

GrumpyBunny: if she’s already on Medicaid, it’s way too late to gift anything in most states; it’s considered fraud, and can affect the state paying her nursing home bills.

Yep. Unless she gifted it a while ago (2 years or whatever), it can affect her eligibility for Medicaid assistance.

Same thing with the house, though the OP said it had been in her(his?) name for years so I presume that’s longer than the lookback period.

For what it’s worth, the financial look-back period regarding Medicaid eligibility for nursing-home assistance is five years. As noted earlier, if she’s already receiving Medicaid, she can’t gift anything at this point.

We’re doing some estate planning for my mother now (which is more than a bit late, considering she’s 90, but she’s also stubborn and didn’t want to do anything before). I understand the government’s reluctance to cover nursing-home expenses for very wealthy people, but for those like my mom, who sacrificed and saved her whole life to be able to leave a small amount for her child and grandchildren, it’s frustrating.

salinqmind, my best to you and your mom.

That would seem to me to be an opportunity for a bit of a windfall. Debt collectors who dun people who don’t actually owe them any money can be liable for some serious civil penalties.

On the Medicaid gift issue – ignorance fought; TY to Sauron, Mamma Zappa, and slash2k.

Help me to understand this thinking. You understand there is only so much government money for assistance, for seniors without resources surely. And that exempting some of this one’s income means someone else will not receive funding, I’m certain. Are you suggesting her wishing to leave a ‘little something’ for her descendants should be prioritized above helping more seniors afford end of life care?

I’m curious, if there was no government involved, at all. There was a finite amount of money in her account, would you then prioritize ‘leaving a little something’ above her care needs? Or is that only for when the tax payer will foot the bill?

It’s not nice to watch people who worked all their lives end up without a financial legacy for their descendants, everyone wishes they could leave one, I’m sure. End of life care, however is incredibly expensive and none can predict what their needs might amount to.

Blaming a government, willing to provide for those who have exhausted their resources, seems extremely misguided and short sighted to me.

We can get into a lengthy debate on this issue, but I doubt this thread is the place to do so. My position boils down to this: Nursing home costs, like all other healthcare costs, have ballooned outrageously in the past few decades as government and insurance assistance became available. The cost of the average nursing home stay in my state is now around $7,000 per month.

If you have insurance or are eligible for Medicaid assistance, though, the actual cost to those entities is far less than that, because they have the clout to negotiate with the nursing home. So a person who qualifies for Medicaid assistance signs over the majority of their Social Security payment (another government benefit) to the nursing home, and Medicaid picks up the rest of the cost – which is far less than $7,000 each month.

Given this scenario, my mother would be foolish to foot the entire bill of her nursing-home stay on her own if she can structure her assets to have the government do so at a substantially lower cost.

If Medicaid assistance weren’t available for nursing home care, I would be willing to bet money the actual cost of nursing home care would drop substantially.

Some states have partnership agreements that allow someone to keep a certain level of assets that they don’t have to spend down. But the catch is that you need to have long term care insurance in place.

There are also rules about if you own a home, and your spouse still lives in the home, Medicaid can’t take the home. If you are the sole occupant, the house has to be sold - either to pay your expenses (before Medicaid kicks in), or to defray what Medicaid spends for you - I don’t know all the ramifications.

This is part of why, when we bought a condo for my husband’s parents to live in, we did not put them on as part owners. I don’t think Medicaid would have bought our argument that we paid all the expenses, and I was afraid that should nursing home be required, Medicaid would force us to sell and give them all (or at least haf) of the proceeds.

IME, the nursing home social worker, while perhaps helpful in other ways, is employed by the nusing home who, above all else, wants to get paid. Please talk to a lawyer.

There may be free nonprofit legal services agencies in your area that deal with these issues all the time.

Get an Elder Law attorney , not all lawyers know about elders rights .
My sister got a lawyer for our mom b/c elder abuse from her own son and when I told the lawyer about this he was clueless about elder rights .
I send him all my papers I had elder abuse and their rights the lawyer still didn’t know how to help my mom . She lost the case . I was health aide and we had to know all about this.

Ask them for a mailing address, and send them a cease and desist letter. They can no longer contact you unless they bring a lawsuit or other legal remedy.