Eligibility requirement for Medicaid in Virginia:
- Low-income elderly residents (age 65 or older). Income is less than or equal to (<) 80% of the federal poverty level (FPL).
- Have a permanent disability as that term is defined by the Social Security Administration
- Blind
- Pregnant women with household incomes up to 143 percent of poverty.
- Parents with dependent children are eligible if their household income is up to 49 percent of poverty (about $9,700/year for a family of three).
- Children are eligible for Medicaid if their household incomes are up to 143 percent of poverty (VDSS, 2016)
In addition you must meet certain other requirements, such as:
- Be a U.S. citizen or meet certain immigration rules
- Be a resident of the state
- Have a Social Security number
He qualifies because of age (ABD) (VDSS, 2016). She does not qualify for Medicaid because she does not meet the criteria above.
1B Income includes Social Security benefits, pensions, wages, interest, dividends, etc. Your countable income must be no more than $792per month. If you are married and your spouse's income is counted, the limit is $1,068per month (VDSS, 2016) 1C Countable resources in excess of $2,000 for one person or $3,000 for a couple. Resources are things such as bank accounts (checking, savings, certificates of deposit, stocks, bonds, cash value of some life insurance policies, property that does not adjoin your home). Resources, your home and adjoining property, one automobile, burial plots, home furnishings, property in which you have only a life interest and personal jewelry are not counted (VDSS, 2016)
2. Virginia Medicaid program to cover a wide range of services. Services include (Virginia.gov 2016):
- Inpatient and outpatient hospital care
- Doctor's services
- Lab and x-ray services
- Transportation
- Skilled nursing care
- Home health care
- Prescription medications
Skilled nursing home and home health care is covered under Virginia Medicaid, but Adult day care requires Virginia Elderly or Disabled with Consumer Direction (EDCD) Waiver (EDCD, 2016)
3. The Virginia Medicaid sites are not very user friendly to navigate and confusing. The sites keeps on going to a general Medicaid site and not specific state related sites. Also keeps on giving online applications to fill instead of guidelines on who is covered and what benefits are available. The site also has a lot of distractions with advertisements. Navigating these sites is difficult since not all information is on one site. I needed to go to multiple sites to get information on benefits and combine the lists. This could be problem for the elderly with short-term memory. Also significant time was spent browsing the Internet to get information requiring continuous clicking and typing which could be hard on the elderly with arthritis.