---
title: "West Virginia Medicaid Look-Back Period | Funding LTC Marketplace"
url: https://fundingltcmarketplace.com/states/west-virginia/medicaid-look-back-period/
description: "West Virginia reviews five years of transfers for long-term care Medicaid, so the timing of gifts, life estates and below-market title changes matters."
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.
---
West Virginia · Look-Back & Penalties

# West Virginia Medicaid Look-Back Period

Last updated 2026-10-20

**Quick answer:** West Virginia Medicaid reviews gifts and transfers made in the 60 months before an application for nursing home or waiver care. The state's long-term care flyer doesn't publish a current penalty divisor, so confirm it with the state.

West Virginia elder-law guidance states that a Medicaid applicant must not have made gifts to others during the 60 months preceding the application, and a current state-specific eligibility overview echoes that same 60-month look-back for nursing-home and waiver long-term-care Medicaid. In real terms, this review can turn a transaction the family thought of as a simple gift, an inheritance decision, or just "adding a name" to a deed into something that affects Medicaid eligibility.

What the state's official long-term-care flyer does not provide is a transfer divisor or a worked calculation example. An older public policy-manual search result turns up some historical figures, but those aren't reliable numbers for 2026 planning. Rather than guessing at a current West Virginia penalty divisor, the responsible move is to get the county office's current policy and the actual transaction records in hand before attempting to calculate any period of ineligibility.

## West Virginia figures

- Look-back period: 60 months

## Sources and official resources

- [West Virginia BFA: Medicaid and Medicaid for Long Term Care](https://bfa.wv.gov/medicaid-and-medicaid-long-term-care)
- [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 West Virginia guide](https://fundingltcmarketplace.com/states/west-virginia/)