Idaho Medicaid Estate Recovery

Recovery is generally blocked or delayed for: No recovery while the recipient's spouse is still living (Idaho Code 56-218(1)(a)). Idaho can still recover from the spouse's estate after the spouse dies, under 56-218(1); No recovery while the recipient has a surviving child under 21 years old (Idaho Code 56-218(1)(a)); No recovery while the recipient has a surviving child of any age who is blind or permanently and totally disabled as defined in 42 U.S.C. 1382c (Idaho Code 56-218(1)(a)); Heirs may ask the department to waive or defer its claim for undue hardship. The applicant must be family with a beneficial interest in the estate and must apply within 90 days of the recipient's death or within 30 days of receiving notice of the department's claim, whichever is later (IDAPA 16.03.26.985.07). Waivers are considered when the estate is income-producing property that is the sole source of support for heirs, when paying the claim would make heirs eligible for public assistance, or when the claim or the whole estate is under $500. Expecting an inheritance is not a hardship, and no hardship exists where assets were moved out of the estate before death; During the recipient's lifetime, no lien may be placed on the home while any of these people lawfully live there: the spouse, a child under 21, a blind or permanently and totally disabled child, or a sibling who holds an equity interest in the home and lived there for at least one year before the recipient entered the institution (Idaho Code 56-218A(2)); Where the department holds a lifetime lien on the home, it may not recover from the home while a sibling who lived there for at least one year before the recipient's admission, or a son or daughter who lived there for at least two years before admission and provided care that kept the recipient out of an institution, has lived there continuously since the admission date (Idaho Code 56-218A(5)(b)).

After a Medicaid recipient dies, the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare may recover the medical assistance it paid for that person while the person was 55 years old or older. Idaho Code 56-218(1) lets the department recover that amount from the recipient's estate and from the estate of the recipient's spouse, for aid paid to either or both, but only after both spouses have died and only when no surviving child is under 21 or blind or permanently and totally disabled. Under 56-218(5) the claim is paid as a debt with preference under Idaho Code 15-3-805(a)(5), so it ranks after administration costs, funeral expenses, federal-preference debts and last-illness medical expenses but ahead of general creditors and anything reaching the heirs, and a distribution made before the claim is paid can be set aside in district court. The department may file a notice of lien against estate property under 56-218(6) and may foreclose that lien without probate in four listed situations, including when no personal representative has been appointed a year after the surviving spouse dies. The department's rule, IDAPA 16.03.26.985.03, says the claim bears no interest until it becomes recoverable and then accrues interest at the legal rate. Two related powers sit beside estate recovery: during the lifetime of a recipient the department finds permanently institutionalized, 56-218A lets it place a lien on the recipient's real property, and 56-218(2) makes transfers for less than adequate consideration within the federal look-back period voidable.

Yes. Idaho offers an undue-hardship waiver. Contact Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, Division of Medicaid, Estate Recovery Unit at (208) 334-5747 to request the waiver and ask about deadlines.

Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, Division of Medicaid, Estate Recovery Unit, phone (208) 334-5747, https://healthandwelfare.idaho.gov/services-programs/medicaid-health.