The New Hampshire legislature has enacted a new law that allows nursing homes to sue anyone who received an asset transfer from a nursing home resident, and also makes the resident’s fiduciaries liable for the cost of care under certain circumstances. This new legislation became law on July 2, 2013. The law, enacted under Title 11 of the New Hampshire statures, §151-E:19, is entitled “Support for Certain Residents of Nursing Homes and Assisted Living Facilities.”
Under the new law, if a nursing home resident transfers assets and that transfer leads to a Medicaid disqualification, the nursing home can sue the person who received the transfer for the nursing home resident’s cost of care, up to the amount transferred. The transferee will be liable at the Medicaid-pay rate, not the private-pay rate. The person sued under this provision can challenge whether the transfer should have been disqualifying, and a Court rather than the Medicaid agency shall decide whether the transfer was disqualifying under the Medicaid rules.
In addition, a nursing home may sue anyone who has control of the resident’s assets and has the authority to file a Medicaid application on behalf of the resident and is negligent in “failing to promptly and fully complete and pursue an application for Medicaid benefits for the resident.” This provision applies to the resident’s fiduciaries, which could be someone acting under a durable power of attorney, an attorney-in-fact, a legal guardian, trustee, or representative payee. The fiduciary would be responsible for the resident’s cost of care for the period the resident was not covered by Medicaid, at the facility’s Medicaid rate. A resident’s fiduciary may also be liable if he or she refuses to pay the resident’s monthly income to the facility as required by the Medicaid agency.
The death of a facility resident does not nullify or otherwise affect the liability of the person or persons charged with the cost of care rendered by the nursing facility under New Hampshire’s new law.
To read the new statute, click here: Support for Certain Residents of Nursing Homes and Assisted Living Facilities
(Courtesy of ElderLawAnswers Weekly)
Categories
- Affordable Care Act
- Alzheimer's Disease
- Arbitration
- Attorney Ethics
- Attorneys Fees
- Beneficiary Designations
- Blog Roundup and Highlights
- Blogs and Blogging
- Care Facilities
- Caregivers
- Cemetery
- Collaborative Family Law
- Conservatorships
- Consumer Fraud
- Contempt
- Contracts
- Defamation
- Developmental Disabilities
- Discovery
- Discrimination Laws
- Doctrine of Probable Intent
- Domestic Violence
- Elder Abuse
- Elder Law
- Elective Share
- End-of-Life Decisions
- Estate Administration
- Estate Litigation
- Estate Planning
- Events
- Family Law
- Fiduciary
- Financial Exploitation of the Elderly
- Funeral
- Future of the Legal Profession
- Geriatric Care Managers
- Governmental or Public Benefit Programs
- Guardianship
- Health Issues
- Housing for the Elderly and Disabled
- In Remembrance
- Insolvent Estates
- Institutional Liens
- Insurance
- Interesting New Cases
- Intestacy
- Law Firm News
- Law Firm Videos
- Law Practice Management / Development
- Lawyers and Lawyering
- Legal Capacity or Competancy
- Legal Malpractice
- Legal Rights of the Disabled
- Liens
- Litigation
- Mediation
- Medicaid Appeals
- Medicaid Applications
- Medicaid Planning
- Annuities
- Care Contracts
- Divorce
- Estate Recovery
- Family Part Non-Dissolution Support Orders
- Gifts
- Life Estates
- Loan repayments
- MMMNA
- Promissory Notes
- Qualified Income Trusts
- Spousal Refusal
- Transfers For Reasons Other Than To Qualify For Medicaid
- Transfers to "Caregiver" Child(ren)
- Transfers to Disabled Adult Children
- Trusts
- Undue Hardship Provision
- Multiple-Party Deposit Account Act
- New Cases
- New Laws
- News Briefs
- Newsletters
- Non-Probate Assets
- Nursing Facility Litigation
- Personal Achievements and Awards
- Personal Injury Lawsuits
- Probate
- Punitive Damages
- Reconsideration
- Retirement Benefits
- Reverse Mortgages
- Section 8 Housing
- Settlement of Litigation
- Social Media
- Special Education
- Special Needs Planning
- Surrogate Decision-Making
- Taxation
- Technology
- Texting
- Top Ten
- Trials
- Trustees
- Uncategorized
- Veterans Benefits
- Web Sites and the Internet
- Webinar
- Writing Intended To Be A Will
Vanarelli & Li, LLC on Social Media