Nursing homes in Northeast Florida typically cost between $9,000 to $14,000 each month. Nursing homes in Jacksonville will top out even in the $15,000 range. Orange Park and Fleming Island nursing homes will be a little less than $14,000 each month. Nursing homes in Palataka can be less than $9,000.

Medicare usually covers the first 20 days in a nursing home following a 3-day hospital stay. If you have a Medicare supplemental, you might get full coverage for more than 20 days.  After Medicare, payment comes from private funds or qualifying for Medicaid. Private funds include your income, long-term care insurance, gifts, and assets. Medicaid requires meeting financial eligibility requirements.

If you have Medicare advantage, then you may be looking at a $190+ per day co-insurance payment after the first 20 days while at short-term rehabilitation, and you may need to apply for Medicaid at that point

If you’re approved for Medicaid, you pay your income to the nursing home, and the State of Florida pays the remainder of the monthly nursing home bill.

To qualify, you need nursing home care, must have gross income below a certain limit or set up an income trust, and your countable assets must be below $2,000 without illegal transfers in the last 5 years.

No. Medicaid pays for nursing homes as well.

Yes, there are legal strategies to protect some of your assets while qualifying for Medicaid. This often involves legally transferring assets, creating trusts, or converting countable assets into exempt ones. However, avoiding illegal transfers and adhering to Medicaid's look-back period is important. Failure to do so could result in being denied and disqualified for a period of time.

Certain assets are exempt from being counted towards Medicaid's asset limit. These typically include your primary residence (under certain conditions), rental property (set up correctly), one vehicle, personal belongings, household goods, certain retirement accounts, and certain burial arrangements.

Gifting money within the Medicaid look-back period can affect your eligibility. These transfers are an attempt to reduce your assets to meet eligibility requirements. Gifting under the IRS rules allowing $18,000 in annual gifts (2024 limit) is not permitted under the Florida Medicaid rules. Medicaid rules require transfer be made for fair market value.

No, but you could mess it up. Owning a home doesn't automatically disqualify you from Medicaid, but its value might be considered in your asset limit unless you’re married. Further, even when the value is not an issue, Medicaid does not leave you enough monthly income and assets to maintain the home. Legal planning is required to protect the home.

Most people arrive at our office with false information about Florida Medicaid they've gathered from friends and family: people who may not have applied for Florida Nursing Home Medicaid before and may have applied in other states. Nursing home staff and other professionals in the long-term care industry want to be helpful, but they do not know they full story because they have not filed Medicaid applications where assets were transferred legally -- they've filed applications after someone spends all their money. Some attorneys may even call themselves elder law attorneys, but they've never filed Medicaid applications tied to the documents they prepared.