---
title: "Montana Medicaid Look-Back Period | Funding LTC Marketplace"
url: https://fundingltcmarketplace.com/states/montana/medicaid-look-back-period/
description: "Montana uses a 60-month transfer review and publishes a $306.27 daily nursing-home penalty rate that remains listed as ongoing."
last_updated: 2026-10-20
author: George A. Mellendorf, CLTC, LTCP (Central States Insurance Services, Inc.)
publisher: Funding LTC Marketplace
note: Educational content; not legal, tax or financial advice. Markdown copy of the HTML page at the URL above.
---
Montana · Look-Back & Penalties

# Montana Medicaid Look-Back Period

Last updated 2026-10-20

**Quick answer:** Montana Medicaid reviews transfers made in the 60 months before an application for institutional or HCBS waiver services, and transfers after eligibility count too. The first long-term care application sets a single look-back period.

Montana enforces a five-year look-back on asset transfers before Medicaid will pay for institutional or home-and-community-based waiver services. Under DPHHS policy, a disqualifying transfer is any transfer for less than fair market value made during that 60-month window — or even after eligibility has already been granted — unless a specific exemption applies.

The clock starts running from the date an institutionalized or waiver applicant requests Medicaid coverage, and it covers more than outright gifts: trust payments made to or for someone other than the Medicaid applicant count too. Importantly, DPHHS treats the first qualifying long-term-care application as establishing a single look-back period, regardless of how many later applications or hospitalizations follow.

## Montana figures

- Look-back period: 60 months

## Sources and official resources

- [Montana DPHHS: How Can Medicaid Help with Nursing Home Bills?](https://dphhs.mt.gov/assets/sltc/ADRC/MedicaidHelpBrochure.pdf)
- [U.S. Code: 42 U.S.C. § 1396p (liens, estate recovery, transfers of assets, Partnership disregard)](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1396p)

Rules and figures change. Confirm current details with the agency before you act.

[← Back to the full Montana guide](https://fundingltcmarketplace.com/states/montana/)