Georgia Medicaid Look-Back Period

Georgia reviews the standard five years — 60 months — of an applicant's financial history, applying its transfer-of-assets policy to any transfer made on or after February 8, 2006, the date the federal Deficit Reduction Act rule kicked in (DFCS PAMMS §2342).

It's worth being clear that this review isn't a tax or a fine. What it actually does is create a stretch of time during which Medicaid simply won't pay for long-term-care services, triggered specifically by an uncompensated transfer turning up in that five-year window (DFCS PAMMS §2342).

DFCS doesn't leave caseworkers to guess at the math, either — the agency publishes a step-by-step worksheet for calculating exactly how long a transfer penalty runs, which matters because not every family gift gets treated the same way under that worksheet (DFCS PAMMS §2342).