A question reguarding Medicaid and how much I will have to pay back.

[Lord Knikon]

Hello, I currently live in the state of Kentucky and I have some issues that I am currently dealing with. I was born with CP and as a result I have been permanently disabled and have been unable to work. At the age of 21 I started receiving SSI from the government and up until recently that is the way things have been other then the fact that my CP has gotten worse over time. I am currently 39 and a few months ago I was informed that because I was a dependent adult child and had never been married that I was supposed to be drawing off of my father's Social Security benefits from the day that he turned retirement age. Even though my father listed me and my step brother as dependent children on his Social Security I was never made aware that I was supposed to be drawing off of my father as I moved out of the state for a while. When I came back recently I was told that I should have been drawing off of my father's benefit for the last 9 years, however, because of this some people who are not connected with Social Security have informed me that I am going to be held responsible for paying back all of the Medicaid costs that I have incurred in the last 9 years, which might include hospital stays and Physical Therapy cost that I never would have agreed to in the first place if I had known that this huge bill might come my way years down the road because of a mistake that is no way my fault ( and is totally on the Social Security Administration for not catching and informing me of this change even though I have been through at least 3 or 4 SSI reviews in the last 9 years).

So now I kind of live in fear every day that one day I am going to get my mail only to discover a massive bill from the Medicaid office saying that I owe them all of this money because of a mistake that they made. I feel it is totally unfair that I have always filled out my paperwork on time, have been through all of the reviews and the constant hoops and paperwork only to have a huge bill handed to me because for the past 9 years someone at the Medicaid office or Social Security Administration did not bother to do their job and give me a phone call or at least send me a piece of mail. Why was this mistake only caught now? and why should I feel like I am being made to pay for someone else's mistake?

Can anyone shed some light on this for me?

 

[LdiJ]

Hello, I currently live in the state of Kentucky and I have some issues that I am currently dealing with. I was born with CP and as a result I have been permanently disabled and have been unable to work. At the age of 21 I started receiving SSI from the government and up until recently that is the way things have been other then the fact that my CP has gotten worse over time. I am currently 39 and a few months ago I was informed that because I was a dependent adult child and had never been married that I was supposed to be drawing off of my father's Social Security benefits from the day that he turned retirement age. Even though my father listed me and my step brother as dependent children on his Social Security I was never made aware that I was supposed to be drawing off of my father as I moved out of the state for a while. When I came back recently I was told that I should have been drawing off of my father's benefit for the last 9 years, however, because of this some people who are not connected with Social Security have informed me that I am going to be held responsible for paying back all of the Medicaid costs that I have incurred in the last 9 years, which might include hospital stays and Physical Therapy cost that I never would have agreed to in the first place if I had known that this huge bill might come my way years down the road because of a mistake that is no way my fault ( and is totally on the Social Security Administration for not catching and informing me of this change even though I have been through at least 3 or 4 SSI reviews in the last 9 years).

So now I kind of live in fear every day that one day I am going to get my mail only to discover a massive bill from the Medicaid office saying that I owe them all of this money because of a mistake that they made. I feel it is totally unfair that I have always filled out my paperwork on time, have been through all of the reviews and the constant hoops and paperwork only to have a huge bill handed to me because for the past 9 years someone at the Medicaid office or Social Security Administration did not bother to do their job and give me a phone call or at least send me a piece of mail. Why was this mistake only caught now? and why should I feel like I am being made to pay for someone else's mistake?

Can anyone shed some light on this for me?

Ok, first, the fact that maybe you should have been drawing off your father's retirement credits rather than receiving SSI, has nothing to do with medicaid. They are two totally separate things. The odds of the amount of benefits that you can draw off your father's SS credits being enough to make you ineligible for medicaid or extended medicaid are not very high.

Who ARE these people who are not connected with the SSA who are telling you that you are going to have to pay back medicaid?

 

[Lord Knikon]

I am not trying to come off as someone that is just whining here. I fully understand that Social Security and Medicaid are two totally different things. I also understand that most government organizations are very overworked and very underpaid. My frustration stems from the fact that after numerous SSI reviews through Social Security and many conversations with the Medicaid office about different things that there was not one single person in either office, mainly through Social Security that told me this was a possibility until now and certain people (someone my father talked to who works for the Social Security office) who are basically acting like the fact that this mistake was made was somehow my fault even though I was never called, mailed anything, or told anything about it in my conversations with them.

I do not mean to come off in the post like I am some entitled fool. It just annoys me when other people make a mistake and act like it is my fault and expect me to pay for it.

At the moment I am in a wait and see mode for what happens but I just wanted to come on here and ask a few questions and see if anyone has had any experience with this kind of thing before and has any advice about what I am supposed to do about it.

I am sorry if I offended anyone. That was not my intention

 

[LdiJ]

I am not trying to come off as someone that is just whining here. I fully understand that Social Security and Medicaid are two totally different things. I also understand that most government organizations are very overworked and very underpaid. My frustration stems from the fact that after numerous SSI reviews through Social Security and many conversations with the Medicaid office about different things that there was not one single person in either office, mainly through Social Security that told me this was a possibility until now and certain people (someone my father talked to who works for the Social Security office) who are basically acting like the fact that this mistake was made was somehow my fault even though I was never called, mailed anything, or told anything about it in my conversations with them.

I do not mean to come off in the post like I am some entitled fool. It just annoys me when other people make a mistake and act like it is my fault and expect me to pay for it.

At the moment I am in a wait and see mode for what happens but I just wanted to come on here and ask a few questions and see if anyone has had any experience with this kind of thing before and has any advice about what I am supposed to do about it.

I am sorry if I offended anyone. That was not my intention

You certainly did not offend me. If you got that impression you were mistaken.

 

[Janke]

If I am reading the original post correctly, you are afraid of something that might happen, not something that has happened, correct? You were an SSI recipient who also should have been a CDB on your dad's SSN. And it took 9 years to catch. Yes, that, unfortunately, does happen. And somebody somewhere said you would have to pay back Medicaid but you haven't gotten any official notices, correct?

There is a provision called Windfall Offset that will require you to pay back the SSI out of the CDB benefits. The amount will be exactly how much less the SSI would have been had the CDB been paid on time, month by month by month for 9 years. If SSI was $750 and CDB for the same month was $500, and there was no other income, well then you owe SSI back $480 (the $20 unearned income exclusion).

So for 9 years, in my example above, after windfall offset, the CDB would pay you $20 (unearned income exclusion) x 12 months x 9 years equals $2160. So I am predicting that you are due around $2000 at the minimum once the computations are done. I do not believe and never heard of having to pay back Medicaid. And anyway, you will also be potentially retroactively entitled to Medicare as a CDB so you would have retroactive coverage.

My advice is to wait for the award letters. Your fear is based on speculation, and in my opinion, your speculation is way off base, so you should not be afraid. If you don't have any old unpaid SSI debt, you should get a little chunk of money in the next 60 days. If you still have unpaid overpayment, well, SSI will apply any money due you to the overpayment balance first.