South Dakota Medicaid Estate Recovery

Under South Dakota law, certain Medicaid payments become debts owed to DSS after a recipient's death. SDCL 28-6-23 covers medical assistance provided to someone in a nursing facility, an intermediate-care facility, or another medical institution, and it also reaches specified nursing-facility, home- and community-based, intermediate-care, hospital, and prescription-drug payments made on behalf of a person who was 55 or older when the services were provided.

DSS's current Estate Recovery brochure is careful to note that the state seeks reimbursement from the estate itself rather than from individual family members. That said, the brochure lists a notably wide set of resources that recovery may reach: facility trust accounts, individual and joint bank accounts, certificates of deposit, proceeds from the sale of a home or other property, irrevocable income trusts, and life estates.