How can we avoid selling house to pay for care?
They probably mean that Medicare will no longer pay for her nursing home care. One thing you could do is to use some of her remaining savings to prepay her funeral and burial expenses. She'll then have to use her savings to pay for the nursing home until she's down to less than $2,000 in cash. Then you can help her apply for Medicaid. Once she's eligible for Medicaid, they will pay the entire cost of her nursing home (though it has to be a nursing home that accepts Medicaid residents).You won't have to sell her home, but it will be subject to "estate recovery" following her death, to repay the state for all payments it made to the nursing home during your mother's lifetime. That means that Medicaid will place a lien on the house that must be repaid before your mother's heirs can divide the rest of the house's value .
