One in 4 Boomers Plans to Retire Near Family. Their Medicaid Coverage Won’t Automatically Follow Them Across State Lines
When families relocate an aging parent who relies on Medicaid home care, they often discover the coverage stops at the state border while the care needs do not. The gap that opens between moving day and new approval can cost… Imagine a retired couple is moving to be closer to their daughter. Since a fall, he needs help bathing and dressing, and most mornings an aide arrives through their state’s Medicaid home care program. They list the house, book the moving truck and assume his coverage will move with them, the same way his Medicare card does. It won’t. His Medicaid home care doesn’t simply cross the state line with him. The new state runs its own program, makes its own eligibility decision and may place him in a completely different home care system. The aide who knows his routine stays behind, and no one replaces her until the new state approves him. Relocating retired people face…
