Long-Term Care Funding in Kentucky

Why Kentucky long-term-care planning is unusually title-sensitive

Kentucky Medicaid’s Division of Long-Term Services and Supports oversees continuing-care options for people whose needs arise from age, a medical condition, or disability. Its published menu includes nursing facilities, 1915(c) home- and community-based waivers, PACE for qualifying people age 55 or older who need nursing-facility level of care, and Kentucky Transitions for people moving out of institutions (Kentucky LTSS overview).

For institutional and waiver pathways, Kentucky uses a special income standard of $2,982 per month in 2026. A person above that standard may establish a Qualifying Income Trust, commonly called a Miller trust, but the trust must be reviewed and funded under Kentucky’s rules rather than treated as a routine spend-down (CHFS Volume IVA policy manual; Kentucky QIT information).

Kentucky's 2026 financial rules

The published long-term-care resource allowance is $2,000 for one person and $4,000 for two aged, blind, or disabled people. For a married institutional applicant with a community spouse, the 2026 Community Spouse Resource Allowance runs from $32,532 to $162,660; Kentucky also applies a $752,000 homestead-equity threshold, subject to the policy's protected-resident exceptions (CHFS Volume IVA policy manual).

Kentucky's transfer review is 60 months for post-February 8, 2006 transfers. The current manual gives a daily transferred-resource divider of $325.41 effective January 1, 2026, and directs the agency to use the divider for the year the transfer becomes known to it (CHFS Volume IVA policy manual; 907 KAR 20:030).

The home: no statutory TOD deed, and recovery is expanded

Kentucky's official legislative record shows that 2026 Senate Bill 34, a proposal to create a Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act, had a last recorded action of referral to a House committee on March 24, 2026. The current official KRS Chapter 381 index lists life-estate provisions but no enacted Kentucky real-property TOD-deed chapter; traditional life estates remain a tool families may discuss with Kentucky counsel, not an enhanced Lady Bird deed (Kentucky SB 34 legislative record; current KRS Chapter 381 index; Kentucky elder-law overview).

Probate avoidance does not by itself answer the recovery question. Kentucky defines an estate for recovery to include probate assets and interests conveyed through joint tenancy, tenancy-in-common survivorship, life estate, a living trust, or another arrangement (907 KAR 1:585 estate-recovery rule).

Care pathways and practical pressure points

Kentucky uses the Kentucky Level of Care System, or KLOCS, for nursing-facility level-of-care work; the system also processes PASRR for Medicaid members and people pending eligibility. The HCB waiver helps older people and people with physical disabilities live in the community, but CHFS says there is currently a waitlist and places completed applications by receipt date (KLOCS overview; Kentucky HCB waiver page).