Nursing Homes Can’t Take Stimulus Checks From Medicaid Residents

Nursing homes and assisted living facilities can’t require residents on Medicaid to turn over their stimulus checks as payment for care, the Federal Trade Commission said Friday.

The stimulus checks are considered tax credits under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, and don’t count as income for federal benefits programs such as Medicaid, the FTC said in a consumer alert.

Attorneys general in Iowa and other states have received reports that nursing homes there have forced residents to sign over their stimulus checks, the FTC said.

“This is not just a horror story making the rounds. These are actual reports that our friends in the Iowa Attorney General’s Office have been getting—and handling. Other states have seen the same,” Lois Greisman, the agency’s elder justice coordinator, said in the alert.

An FTC spokesman was unable to say how many such complaints have been received.

Lynn Hicks, a spokesman for Iowa’s attorney general’s office, said a nursing home in Battle Creek, Iowa, had told residents not to spend their stimulus checks until state officials had determined whether the checks would have an impact on their monthly payment to the facility.

After intervention by the attorney general and the state’s long-term care ombudsman, the nursing home informed the residents that they could keep their stimulus funds, Hicks said.

Personal-Need Allowance

Medicaid requires nursing home residents to contribute most of their income to help with the cost of their care, but allows them to keep a small amount of money as a personal-need allowance to pay for personal and uncovered medical expenses.

The FTC alert underlines that the stimulus payments count as part of that personal-need allowance, according to Brent Willett, president and CEO of the Iowa Health Care Association, an advocacy group for Iowa’s nursing homes.

Cristina Crawford, a spokeswoman for the American Health Care Association, the national counterpart of the IHCA, agreed. “Nursing facilities will not receive any additional private payments,” she said.

The IHCA had issued guidance to members April 23 to ensure they understood that stimulus payments are not income for the purposes of determining a Medicaid recipient’s monthly payment, Willett said.

“There was some confusion about the stimulus payments among our members when they were first announced,” he said. “So we put out some guidance to clear things up.”

Willett said he was unaware of any complaints about nursing homes attempting to take residents’ stimulus payments.