Maryland Medicaid Look-Back Calculator

Maryland's look-back and penalty divisor

Maryland divides counted transfers by $12,501 per month (Maryland Medicaid Manual Appendix Schedules 2026 (effective 1/1/2026), Schedule MA-6, effective July 1, 2025) and looks back 60 months.

• The daily figure used for the remaining days is $411. (MD Medical Assistance Manual Appendix, Schedule MA-6)
• The penalty is figured in whole months and days, without decimals. (MD MA Manual 800.20(a) (rev. July 2012), COMAR 10.09.24.08)
• Maryland counts whole months, then divides the remainder by the daily figure for whole days, and disregards a remainder smaller than one day's amount. (MD MA Manual 800.20(a) (rev. July 2012), COMAR 10.09.24.08)
• The penalty applies to nursing facility care, equivalent institutional care, and 1915(c) waiver services. (MD MA Manual 800.20(a) (rev. July 2012), COMAR 10.09.24.08)

How the look-back and the penalty work

When someone applies for Medicaid to pay for nursing-home care, the state looks back at gifts and transfers made for less than fair value. Federal law sets the look-back at 60 months before the application for transfers made since February 8, 2006, and California runs its own 30-month rule.

Every counted transfer in the window is added together and divided by the state's penalty divisor, the average monthly cost of private-pay nursing-facility care that the state publishes. The result is the number of months Medicaid will not pay for long-term care. Federal law says a state may not round a partial month down, and states handle the leftover fraction in different ways: as part of a month, as whole days, or as a one-time dollar charge. California, which runs its own rules, does not impose a partial month.

The penalty does not start on the date of the gift. It starts only when the person has applied, would otherwise be eligible, and is receiving long-term care, which is why a gift made years earlier can still delay coverage at the worst moment. California is the exception: under DHCS guidance a Medi-Cal period of ineligibility runs from the month of the transfer.

Transfers federal law does not penalize

Some transfers are exempt under 42 U.S.C. 1396p(c)(2): anything to a spouse or for the spouse's sole benefit; transfers to a blind or disabled child or a trust solely for that child's benefit; a trust solely for a disabled person under 65; and the home, when it goes to a spouse, a child under 21, a blind or disabled child, a sibling with an equity interest who lived there for a year, or a child who lived there for two years and provided care that kept the parent at home.

A penalty can also be avoided if the state accepts that the transfer was for fair value or made only for a reason other than qualifying for Medicaid, if all transferred assets are returned, or if the state grants an undue hardship waiver.