Everything your family needs to apply for Medicaid for your parent — in one packet, for your state.
When a parent suddenly needs nursing-home or long-term care, the application means 5 years of financial records and state forms where one mistake can delay approval by months.
MedicaidChecklist builds your family one personalized packet:
- The document checklist
- Your state's forms, with instructions
- Every deadline, in order
- Questions for an elder-law attorney
MedicaidChecklist is a private document-preparation service — no legal advice, no filing. We get your family ready; you (or your attorney) file with your state.
The part nobody tells you
Medicare stops. Medicaid is what pays for long-term care.
Most families assume Medicare covers a nursing home. It doesn't: Medicare pays for at most 100 days of skilled nursing care after a hospital stay, and nothing for ongoing (“custodial”) long-term care. The public program that does pay for long-term care is Medicaid — with financial rules attached. That's the application this packet helps you prepare for.
Up to 100 days
Medicare covers skilled nursing care after a qualifying hospital stay — up to 100 days per benefit period, with a daily copay after day 20.
source: medicare.gov$0 for long-term care
Medicare does not pay for custodial long-term care — help with daily living, the care most nursing-home residents need. A nursing home runs $9,000+ a month paid privately.
source: medicare.govMedicaid is the payer
Medicaid is the primary public payer of long-term care in America. Qualifying is financial — income and asset limits, plus a multi-year review of financial history.
source: medicaid.govWhat you get
What's in the packet
The document checklist
Every record your state's caseworker will ask for — 5 years of financial history, itemized for your parent's exact situation, with check-off boxes.
Your state's actual forms
Which official forms to file, where each one goes, and plain-English instructions — linked straight to the state source, so you can verify everything.
A deadline roadmap
What to do this week, what can wait, and which deadlines are strict — in order, with the reasoning.
Questions for the attorney (if you need one)
If your answers raise red flags — gifts in the last 5 years, a trust, a spouse at home — you get the exact questions that turn a $5,000 engagement into a $300 hour.
Built for California, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas — each with that state's current limits and forms, cited to the official source and dated. Your state not listed? We're adding more states soon, check back soon!
To be clear: you file the application, not us. The packet makes sure nothing is missing or out of order when you do.
See it before you pay
Two pages from a real packet
Don't take the list above on faith. These are excerpts from an actual generated packet — a Michigan family, parent entering a nursing home, spouse still at home, gifts made in the last 5 years. The locked lines are what the packet unlocks; the free check builds this for your state and answers.
MedicaidChecklist — Michigan · 2026
Document checklist — what Michigan will ask for
Michigan reviews 60 months of financial history. Start collecting now: banks can take 2–6 weeks to produce old statements, and the application clock doesn't wait. Check items off as you collect them.
- Photo ID
- Proof of Michigan residency
- Proof of citizenship or immigration status
- For every gift or transfer in the last 5 years
12 more items — including 3 added specifically for the sample family's answers — unlock with the packet
MedicaidChecklist · packet excerpt · section 2 of 6
MedicaidChecklist — Michigan · 2026
Your timeline — what to do and when
This week: Request the financial records
Request 60 months of statements from every bank, brokerage, and retirement account. Request them in writing and keep copies of the requests. This is the long pole — banks take 2–6 weeks — which is why it starts today.
This step is free — start it today, packet or not.
3 more steps and 4 attorney questions written for the sample family's red flags — unlock with the packet
MedicaidChecklist · packet excerpt · section 4 of 6
These are real excerpts from a real generated packet — not a mock-up. The gray bars are the lines you're paying for.
Who runs this
“I built this after my own family went through it: a sudden hospital discharge, a stack of forms, and no idea which of my grandfather's records the caseworker would ask for.”
— Bennett Dixon, founder · full story and contact
Verify us
Want to look us up first? Good — you should.
Most people research a site like this before typing anything in. That's the right instinct, so we built MedicaidChecklist to be easy to verify:
Check our numbers against the state's
Every income limit, asset limit, and form in your packet is cited to the official state or federal source and dated — the free check shows the same figures. If we ever disagree with your state's website, trust the state and email us.
The free check risks nothing
No email, no account, no names, no SSN — income and savings in ranges only. There is nothing to steal. Judge the quality of the answer before any money is involved.
Payment is handled by Stripe
If you buy the packet, the card form belongs to Stripe — the payment processor used by Amazon and Google. Checkout and your card statement will show Dixon Development, LLC, the Ann Arbor, Michigan company behind MedicaidChecklist. We never see or store your card number, and every purchase has a 30-day money-back guarantee.
A real person answers for this
MedicaidChecklist is run by a named founder, not an anonymous LLC — who he is, why he built this, and how to reach him. We are not affiliated with any government agency, and we say so everywhere.
Pricing
What it costs — and what it costs to get this wrong
Elder-law attorneys charge $3,000–$15,000 for Medicaid application help. A single month of nursing-home care your family covers out of pocket while a denied application gets refiled runs $9,000 or more.
Eligibility check
Free
- 8 questions, income and savings in ranges only
- Instant answer on the page — no email, no account
- Your answers next to your state's current published limits — the eligibility decision itself is always the state agency's
The full packet
$149
one-time · 30-day money-back guarantee · applying to Medicaid itself is always free through your state agency — this is preparation help, not a filing fee
- Personalized document checklist for the 5-year review
- Your state's forms, where they go, plain-English instructions
- Step-by-step roadmap with deadlines
- Attorney-questions appendix triggered by your red flags
- Delivered on screen, as a PDF, and by email
If you're hiring an attorney
Lawyers are worth it. Prepared clients pay a lot less.
Our founder was raised by lawyers — a mom who practices law, an aunt who spent her career in estate planning, a grandfather who was an attorney. So we'll say what most sites selling you something won't: on a hard case, a good elder-law attorney earns their fee many times over.
But attorneys bill by the hour, and a large share of a $3,000–$15,000 engagement goes to work a prepared family could have done first — gathering five years of records, learning the vocabulary, figuring out which questions even matter. Walk in with your documents assembled and your red flags already identified, and you're paying for the attorney's judgment instead of their paperwork time.
That's why every packet includes an attorney-questions appendix triggered by your family's specific red flags — gifts in the lookback window, a trust, a spouse at home. The packet doesn't replace the lawyer. It makes the hour you pay for count.
The honest comparison
“Can't I do all of this myself, for free?”
Yes. Every rule, form, and limit in the packet is public information, and your state's website will give it to you at no charge. Plenty of families do it that way. Here's the honest difference:
Doing it yourself
- The state site explains the rules — for everyone, in general
- You work out which rules apply to your parent's situation
- You assemble the document list from caseworker checklists and forums
- You figure out the filing order and which deadlines are strict
- Free, and typically 15–30 hours across several weeks
The packet
- The same public rules — filtered to your parent's answers
- One document checklist for your family's specific situation
- Your state's forms with instructions, in filing order, with deadlines
- Red flags in your answers surfaced before the caseworker finds them
- $149 once — assembled in minutes, sources cited so you can verify
What you're paying for isn't secret information — it's having the public information assembled, sequenced, and specific to your family, during a week when you don't have 20 spare hours.
Privacy, in plain language
What we ask for — and what we never ask for
We ask for
Your parent's state, care situation, marital status, and income and savings as ranges — enough to check the limits, nothing more. Your email only if you buy the packet, so we can send it to you.
We never ask for
Social Security numbers, account numbers, exact balances, or your parent's name. The packet shows you where you'll add those on the official state forms yourself.
See how your parent's numbers compare — free, in 2 minutes.
No email. No account. Answer 8 questions, see your state's published limits next to your answers. The eligibility decision is always the state's.