medicaid estate recovery

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? wa i have a friend that just passed away, and he was on medicaid.his son lived with him and his exwife lived on the same property as the son was her paid caregiver.would this be cosidered a hardship case as the son used the property as his employment for his mother ,and if the state goes thru with the estate recovery process, they both would have to move. the state hasnt started this yet,just preparing for the worst.my friend that just died has hospital bills totaling over 130,000 due to a whipple surgery and complications afterwards.this what i found at the website. The state has many programs, administered by the Department of Social & Health Services
(DSHS) that pay for medical services. The Medicaid program is one example. Under some of
these programs, and with important limitations, the estate-recovery law allows the state to
recover (to get back) the cost of the services it pays for.
The estate recovery law allows recovery from a recipient’s estate after death.Estate recovery is allowed for almost all expenses of medical services provided under Medicaid
programs beginning June 1, 2004 to persons who were 55 or older when the services were
provided.The state may waive or defer estate recovery (that is, it may agree not to recover, or not to
recover for a period of time) when it would cause an undue hardship to an heir. The waiver is
limited to the period for which the hardship exists. Undue hardship is considered to exist when:
• the property subject to recovery is the sole income-producing asset of one of the heirs
whose income is low; or
• recovery would deprive an heir of shelter when the heir lacks the financial means
necessary to obtain and maintain alternative shelter.any info would be appreciated .tksWhat is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?

commentator

you are "borrowing trouble' here. And trying to obtain information by reading laws that make no sense at all to you, and really shouldn't because they don't always apply and you don't know how they relate to this case.

If this person was on Medicaid, he had a caseworker. This caseworker will deal only with the appropriate person, whoever is probating this gentleman's estate. It isn't necessary to try to anticipate what's happening here. They may or may not try to collect assets. There are very strict rules about what belongs to the surviving spouse and what they could assess to help cover his bills. But until something is actually done, you can't pre-determine what will happen. Since the wife is an ex, the son should be the one who is dealing with this, as he is probably the one who will be getting the bills, working things out with the hospital, Medicaid, etc.