Home Exempt Under Medi-Cal Assets Rule

Question: I have appreciated your ongoing discussion of Medi-Cal benefits and would like to ask one question. My father, who is 88, may be in need of convalescent care in a home. I have contacted my local Medi-Cal office about this aspect of the coverage only because, while we are able to meet outpatient medical bills without assistance, any catastrophic illness would be prohibitive for us.

I was informed by Medi-Cal that my father’s house would remain exempt if, as you stated in your column, he were to return home after being in a convalescence facility. However, I was also told that even though I am neither dependent nor disabled, the house would remain exempt if I continue to live there and if I have done so for more than a year.

This almost sounds too simple to be true, as several years ago we were advised by an attorney to transfer the title to me to guarantee that I would not become homeless in the event of my father’s illness. Is the interpretation of the Medi-Cal guideline as it was stated to me, or are there “loopholes”?--M.R.

And still another question: My elderly husband and I each had considerable assets when we were married. His children are his heirs and our home is in his name. Should he need to spend years in a nursing facility--a good probability because he is 76 and failing badly due to many small strokes--can my life savings be taken from me after his are used up? Our community property is only a bit of furniture and his two cars, which he had added my name to. We kept everything separate. (I do not believe I would receive income from his state employee pension as surviving spouse or from his Social Security.) This is a great worry and I would appreciate any help you can give.--M.S.

Answer: OK, the first, and easier, question first. Is the home, in your case, exempt from the asset-splitting that state law permits? (The law allows asset-splitting so that the assets of the institutionalized family member can be spent down to Medi-Cal’s qualifying, $1,800 floor, without at the same time decimating the assets of the non -institutionalized family member.)

According to Jacquie Miller, acting project director of the City of Los Angeles’ Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program, the answer is a definite yes--there’s no “loophole.” As long as you have lived in the home too for at least a year--as you have--it’s fully as exempt (doesn’t have to be sold) as if you were a minor or a disabled dependent.

Both Miller and I wish that the second question were as easily and as satisfactorily answered. Having your home, and virtually all of your collective assets as well, in your husband’s name alone is a sticky bit of business. Not necessarily because your assets are at risk, but because all of his are.

“It could be a problem, but it’s not a Medi-Cal question,” Miller says. “It’s strictly a legal one. She’s going to need the advice of a lawyer.”

And a good place to start is by calling Elderline, (213) 622-3809, 9 a.m. to noon Monday through Friday. This referral service is sponsored jointly by the County Bar Assn., Public Counsel, the Barristers’ Assn. and Legal Aid. The organization--contrary to its name--doesn’t confine itself to legal problems of the elderly; rather it deals with general estate-planning matters.

Incidentally, your fears about not receiving surviving spouse benefits--simply because your husband has retained all of your property in his own name--seem to be without foundation.

According to Judy Preston of the health-benefits section of the state’s Public Employees Retirement System in Sacramento, your rights as the survivor of a retired state employee are in no way tied to the community property status in your marriage.

What could impact it, of course, would be the option your husband selected when he retired, but this is true of virtually all public and private pension plans. If he chose full benefits with no survivor benefits (a fairly common practice when the husband carries life insurance that fills this void), then you, sure enough, wouldn’t get any benefits. But it has nothing to do with who owns what in your own family.

Similarly, Joe Giglio, public affairs specialist for the Social Security Administration, says that the survivor benefits due you from Uncle Sam, again, have nothing at all to do with the community property status of your husband’s estate. You’ll be the surviving spouse.

But you do, indeed, have a potential problem with Medi-Cal that you should address as soon as possible. That’s where Elderline enters the picture.

When we last discussed Medi-Cal, we didn’t have the telephone number for the 5-year-old Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program--a statewide network of 35 volunteer groups that handle Medi-Cal questions. While the network’s primary job is to act as a watchdog over Medi-Cal’s long-term custodial facilities and the care that patients receive there, it can either answer or refer most general questions on the subject. For Los Angeles the number is either (800) 782-4303 or (213) 624-9283. Statewide, when local office numbers are unavailable, the number is (800) 231-4024.

Q: Something happened to me and a friend that should be passed on as a warning to others. We both had an item charged to our Broadway accounts described as “Travel Club--$39.” Neither of us had authorized this charge, and when we complained, the cashier at the Broadway store said it would take two or three billing cycles to remove the charge!

If we paid only the minimum monthly amount due, we would be charged a finance charge on this $39 until it is removed--a small amount, true, but still our money.--E.S.

A: Checking all charge account bills before you pay them is a good piece of advice, but the Broadway’s senior vice president and general credit manager, Winston Bowman, is a bit puzzled by what you were told.

The store’s Travel Club, which provides members with discount tours and other amenities and has turned out to be extremely popular, is sold for the Broadway by an outside, professional telemarketing organization. Bowman calls this firm “a most reliable company, one of the best we’ve found. Everything is recorded when a call is made--the date, the time and some sort of personal identification, such as a birth date or a maiden name, to make sure that the customer’s identity is carefully verified.”

Some initial problems with the sales campaign were encountered, Bowman said, “because rather than billing (customers) at once, we were waiting about three months, and in that period, some people simply forgot that they had agreed to sign up.

“It’s entirely possible too that the customer confused this three-month lag before she would be billed with the comment about how long it would take to remove the charge. But, of course, a customer can cancel for any reason at all, and when this happens, the charge is knocked off his/her bill immediately.”

One additional part of the trouble, he suspects, is that a retailer’s definition of “billing cycle” and the public’s definition of it are miles apart. A customer, because he or she receives the store’s bill once a month, equates one “billing cycle” with one month.

Actually, the Broadway has several billing cycles each month--nine, in fact--and in all probability the cashier in this case, when talking of “two or three billing cycles,” neglected to draw this distinction.

Still, if by some quirk, a finance charge for a canceled service did sneak onto the customer’s bill, Bowman said, “it would certainly be stricken from it and the charge credited to his account.”

If you call Carol Ladin, the Broadway’s credit service manager, at (213) 227-3576, any erroneous finance charge will be stricken.