I-Team: A family's plea to read the fine print when signing up for Medicaid

by Mary Kielar

Ellen McCauley says Medicaid has a $220,000 lien on her mother's home. (Photos provided by Ellen McCauley)

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Memories of love and laughter at home are becoming a nightmare for one Syracuse family.

Ellen McCauley's mother's home on West Onondaga Street is now in the hands of Medicaid after she passed away in January of 2023.

"I think about how the Christmas tree was always over there and how the little kids grew up and now they have children of their own. I think about playing games around the table and how much laughter we had," said McCauley. "We knew that her greatest wish was that this house was our inheritance, my sister Mae and I."

How It Started

In 2019 Ellen's mother's health declined, and they were looking into options for her care. The solution came from her great-niece, who agreed to move into the house with her two small children to take care of her.

"We saw those commercials, hey ... for free you can get help in the home. Pay your loved ones. So we said let's do that! So we signed her up with a local company, my niece made minimum wage, never more than $10,000 a year, and we didn't even realize that this local company was getting $4,000 to $5,000 a month."

The company is Syracuse-based Nascentia Health. A spokesperson deferred comment to New York Medicaid when the I-Team reached out for this story. Ellen says they would call and check in periodically on her mother's care-but her niece handled the day-to-day tasks she needed help with.

A Harsh Realization

Now, McCauley says Medicaid has taken over her later mother's home. "It wasn't until my mother died that we got a letter from Medicaid saying they put a $202,000 lien on this house on West Onondaga."

A lien is a right to keep property belonging to another person until a debt owed by that person is paid. In this case, that property is Ellen's mother's house and Medicaid is legally working to recoup the money spent on her care.

She is literally in heaven, in G-d's ear going, 'They can't take my house, I worked too hard for it, G-d.'

Federal Medicaid rules say state Medicaid programs must recover certain Medicaid benefits on behalf of the person enrolled, which could mean taking property.

A spokesperson for the New York State Health Department says applicants are informed of this possibility when they apply for Medicaid, but Ellen says she can't remember ever hearing about it, which is why she reached out to the I-Team.

Legal Advice

"It's emotional ... it's their parent or their spouse, and it's extremely difficult. If you plan ahead, kind of take away some of that stress," explained Anthony Copani of Mannion Copani in Syracuse. He focuses on elder law and Medicaid.

The I-Team reached out for his take on the McCauley family's situation. "They won't file a lien against the home while the person's living there. But, when she died they were able to go back the ten years, add up all the monies that they paid out and then filed the lien against the home at that time. But yes, if that person was in a nursing home and she was not likely to return home, then Medicaid's right to lien the property would've been more immediate."

Copani's legal advice is to consider creating a family trust. That way, a property like a family home will never be attached to a Medicaid lien. Planning should start five years before applying for long-term care assistance. He adds that failure to plan ahead means after someone dies, their estate is created. If the property is included and they were receiving some type of assistance, the lien can be attached.

How To Protect Yourself and Your Property

The NYS Health Department says Medicaid applicants are given the information with the warning that property could be taken by Medicaid.

When you do that at your local Department of Social Services you can get a copy of documents on the NYS Office of Temporary Disability Assistance website or request a paper copy by mail.

It's a step McCauley wishes she knew to take, but she hopes sharing her family's story will help one family avoid this outcome. 

"My mother would be so happy if she thought that one person would be safe from this same situation by listening to what I have to say today, and not going on managed Medicaid because they don't want their loved one to lose their home."

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I-Team: A family's plea to read the fine print when signing up for Medicaid