Michigan Medicaid Look-Back Period

Michigan reviews the 60 months before an applicant's baseline date for disqualifying transfers, matching the federal five-year standard. Importantly, a transfer that trips this rule doesn't wipe out Medicaid eligibility altogether — it triggers a penalty period instead.

There's a subtle distinction worth knowing: federal guidance frames the look-back as 60 months before someone applies for Medicaid, while Michigan's own manual uses a baseline-date framework that isn't always identical to the application date. Anyone doing transfer planning in Michigan needs both the actual transaction dates and the specific Medicaid application and institutionalization facts to know where they stand.

For 2026, Michigan's divestment penalty divisor is $12,216 — the figure used to calculate how many months of ineligibility an uncompensated transfer creates.