How to claim resident trust accounts?

So dad was in a NH on LTC Medicaid & had the NH as his direct payee for his SS &/or other monthly income? & $ is the built up account from smallish bit of $ that ea mo Medicaid allowed him to keep for his own use, aka his PNA / personal needs allowance? This is it, right?

if so, this is my experience(s)with this....
- do you know that there actually is a balance? NH can have monthly fees that are NOT covered by Medicaid & these are automatically debited each month. Like for cable, in room phone, weekly beauty shoppe or barber visit. So really no $ buildup over time. Or elder took $ for field trips, or the NH “store” or used to buy something not covered by Medicaid. So no real $ left.

- there likely was a form filled out at the NH when he went in as to who was allowed to go to the biz office at NH & draw from the PNA. The DPOA or the elder did this. From then on if you were on the list you signed out on a log with date & $ amount and for what. For my mom, it was 3 names. Whomever is the first on that form should get a check in their name for the balance when the elders account at the NH has settled. For my mom, she was totally current on her billing, Medicaid eligibility and any extra costs (she was paid up with beauty shoppe). Check sent in my name & not “in estate of”, within abt 90 days. They did it in my name cause lots of folks do NOT open probate. & if you don’t open probate, there’s no place to deposit a “estate of” payee check, so it can’t get cashed. If you do open probate, we did, you can deposit it into the account your using for the estate. Your not even at 60 days post death, it may need another 60 days.

- if he wasn’t current on his bill or had not yet cleared Medicaid eligibility, that’s going to be lots more sticky to deal with. NH will likely hold funds till Medicaid cleared & they are paid the daily room&board by Medicaid back to day 1 of admission. They will use the pretext that once billing zeros the $ will be sent.

On another subject, you do realize that as he did NOT live the entire month of January, should he get a check this month (February) from SS or other pension or retirement, that $ will need to be clawed-back or returned / repaid. My mom died almost end of month & got paid on the 3rd the following month from her 2 incomes sources. The $ was left in her bank account (became estate account). SSA pretty quick, within 30 days for clawback. But the civil service annuity took abt 3 months. If he gets a clawback & no $, they will try again & again AND bank will attach NSF fees & can freeze accounts.

They are not allowed to keep it. It is Dads money and part of his estate. Did u Probate? If so, u received a certificate saying u are Executor and now can handle Dads affairs. That with his death certicate should be enough. I gave my info to the finance dept and they sent it onto the main office. In a few weeks, I received a check for what was in the acct. In my name, which I thought was weird. I had no acct to place it in, so I kept the cash until probate. It was then included in her assets.

If u did not do probate, then u need to get a certificate from them saying ur handling Dads assets. It will cost though.

If the NH says they are not allowed to release it, call SS. This money does not go back to Medicaid or SS.

The facility should have a written policy or explanation of how the trust works and what happens to the funds when a resident passes. Talk to their business office for this info (but unless you're the executor you cannot ask about your father's account specifically). If your father was on Medicaid, I believe those funds are protected from collection, but usually those trusts don't contain more than a few hundred dollars ($250 max is what my MIL is allowed).

What instructions were left by your Dad? Are you in probate? Are you executor? Dad's funds will be collected by the Executor of his Trust or his will. The funds left over will be distributed. The executor will file and collect information on all assets Dad left.