Delaware Medicaid Estate Recovery

Delaware's Medicaid long-term-care regulation defines the recoverable 'estate' as all real and personal property that counts as assets of the individual's estate under Title 12, Chapter 19 of the Delaware Code — Delaware's probate statute. Because that's a reference to probate law rather than an explicit list of every non-probate ownership arrangement, title and beneficiary designations still call for case-by-case review, since lien and estate-claim rules can operate separately.

DHSS pursues recovery either after the individual's death or when property subject to a lien is sold, provided long-term-care assistance was actually paid on the person's behalf. The ceiling on what can be recovered is the total amount DHSS disbursed or incurred — including the federal matching share — while that individual was receiving DHSS long-term-care services.