Colorado Medicaid Estate Recovery
Colorado recovers qualifying Health First Colorado spending from estates, subject to federal safeguards, liens, and good-cause waiver authority.
Colorado recovers some correctly paid Medicaid spending
HCPF describes the Colorado Medical Assistance Estate Recovery Program as federally required. Its public page says that, after the death of a person who received medical assistance, certain assets must be used to repay HCPF for correctly paid Health First Colorado expenditures. Colorado’s estate-recovery statute authorizes recovery from the estate of a person who was age 55 or older when assistance was received and from the estate of an institutionalized individual, subject to the federal Medicaid law and the statute’s limits (HCPF Estate Recovery program; Colorado Revised Statutes, section 25.5-4-302).
HCPF’s current fraud-prevention fact sheet states that the agency recovers the minimum amount required under federal law from deceased member estates when the member was permanently institutionalized or was age 55 or older and received LTSS such as nursing-facility or waiver services. That statement is useful because it distinguishes estate recovery from the earlier eligibility review: a residence may be an exempt asset for an eligibility determination and still be relevant to a later claim against the estate (HCPF estate-recovery fact sheet).
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