medicaid spendown

Traveler · Oct 14, 2004

Where I work now we take no Medicaid (it is Tenncare here). Mostly Medicare and some private insurance. I do know that one of the small locally owned pharmacies will allow patients to run up $700-$800 bills to use for spend down. They then work with the patients to get it paid off within 6 months or so.

renerian, BSN, RN · Oct 16, 2004

Thank you for responding.

renerian

cherricka · Oct 22, 2005

I work with both CHHA patients , and Long Term Home Health Program patients (medicaid). For their spend-downs, I encourage them to use receipts from adult diapers/pads, vitamins, medication co-pays ($2-3 a pop), I think you can also count gas to travel to Dr appt's (don't quote me on that one!). Lotions, over the counter medications,anything that is health related, or can be ordered by the doctor as needed. Humidifiers, soap, etc. Better that they use the receipts to go towards spendown, rather than sending in their check to DSS every month, with nothing to show for it.(you know what I mean)

SouthernLPN2RN, MSN, RN, APRN, NP · Oct 22, 2005

What is medicaid spend down?

homehealth43130 · Nov 1, 2005

We accept Medicaid spend-down and allow them to use our charges against their spend-down. Depending on how much of a spend-down they have, we send a bill to their Medicaid case manager after the required number of visits have been made. They then become eligible for their Medicaid card and can purchase their medications, etc. We do not treat them any different than any other Medicaid/Medicare client in regards to numbers of visits etc. Of course this doesn't help with an extreemly large Medicaid spend-down or one or two visits a month. These charges are written off at the end of the year.