Using the Medicaid 5-year lookback, the government ensures that you have not given away your resources or money. The law attempts to prevent schemes in which the government pays for a senior’s care instead of them using their own funds or assets.
Medicaid helps pay for long-term care, but it requires you to exhaust your personal resources before receiving benefits. Medicaid looks back five years at seniors’ financial transactions to prevent them from giving away money or resources. Attempting to hide money so Medcaid will pay for long term care can lead to serious penalties.