Policy History for 5.10.2 Useful terms

Release 06-01

 

5.10.2 Useful terms

5.10.2.1 Community Spouse

5.10.2.2 Community Spouse

5.10.2.3 Institutionalized

5.10.2.1 Community Spouse

A "community spouse" is:

 

  1. Married to an institutionalized person and
     

  2. Not living in a nursing home or other medical institution for 30 or more consecutive days.

 

As long as the community spouse is not an institutionalized person, his/her living arrangement can have no effect on his/her asset share (5.10.2.2) or income allocation (5.10.6).
 

Example:  Joe is an institutionalized person living in a nursing home.  His wife, Carla, is in prison.  Carla is entitled to the community spouse asset share and to any allowable income which Joe chooses to allocate to her.

 

5.10.2.2 Community Spouse

The community spouse asset share ( CSAS ) is the amount of countable assets above $2,000 that the community spouse, the institutionalized person, or both, can possess at the time the institutionalized person applies for MA.  Once the institutionalized spouse is determined eligible, the assets of the community spouse are unavailable.

5.10.2.3 Institutionalized

"Institutionalized person" means someone who:
 

  1. Participates in Community Waivers, or
     

  2. Has resided in a medical institution for 30 or more consecutive days, or
     

  3. Is likely to reside in a medical institution for 30 or more consecutive days, as attested to by the medical institution.

 

An exception to the 30 day period is that a resident of an IMD Institute for Mental Disease (5.8.1.1) is considered an institutionalized person until s/he is discharged. The 30 day period includes situations in which the person resides in more than 1 medical institution during 30 or more consecutive days.

 

If a person relocates from one institutional living arrangement to another, consider him/her to be in a continuous period of institutionalization, provided s/he does not live in a non-institutional living arrangement between the two periods of institutional living.

 

Example:  Mr. Wunder's niece moved him from his community waiver placement in Bayfield County to an SNF nursing home in Eau Claire County.  This is a continuous period of institutionalization.  If he had gone to live with his niece for a while, and then gone to the Eau Claire nursing home, his arrival at the Eau Claire nursing home would have been considered a new period of institutionalization.

 

 

This page last updated in Release Number : 01-02

Release Date: 04/01/01

Effective Date: 04/01/01