It isn’t every day that the State of New York gives residents a break but that is what happened on March 27th with the repeal by the state legislature of the new medicaid regulations which expanded the definition of an "estate" for the purposes of medicaid recovery. We now return to the prior definitions in effect prior to last September which limit assets subject to recovery to those within the  estate of a decedent which would pass either by will or by intestacy. Additionally, the proposed elimination of spousal refusal was eliminated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The significance of this development is hard to overstate.In the absence of repeal, the difficulty of protecting the assets of New York residents who require skilled nursing care would be daunting, if not impossible in many cases. We now return to the system that was in effect prior to the implementation of the more onerous regulations this past September.