A Georgia Medicaid Asset Protection Trust (MAPT) only works if it is funded at least five years before care is needed. Under federal law, Medicaid applies a 60-month look-back to assets transferred for less than fair market value, and a transfer into a MAPT is exactly that kind of transfer. Funded in time, an irrevocable MAPT can move a home and savings out of Georgia Medicaid's countable resources. Funded too late, its penalty period lands during the nursing-home stay, the worst possible moment. What a MAPT does about Georgia's estate recovery is a separate question, and a less comfortable one, covered below. This guide explains how a MAPT works in Georgia, the two rules that decide whether it protects anything, and the cheaper alternatives that beat a trust for many families.

What a Medicaid Asset Protection Trust does in Georgia

Long-term care in Georgia is expensive enough to exhaust a lifetime of savings. A semi-private nursing-home room in Georgia runs about $105,850 per year (roughly $8,821 per month), and a private room about $113,150 per year (roughly $9,429 per month), based on the 2025 CareScout Cost of Care Survey figures for the state, which build the annual numbers on 365 days of care.

Medicaid is the main payer for long-term custodial care, but it is means-tested. Georgia Medicaid for the aged, blind, and disabled is SSI-linked, and its resource limit tracks the federal SSI standard: $2,000 for an individual and $3,000 for a couple. Not every asset is counted the same way; the home in particular is governed by a separate equity limit, covered below. Without planning, a family reaches that limit by spending down. With planning, a Medicaid Asset Protection Trust can move assets out of the countable resources ahead of time.

The premise is simple: transfer assets to an irrevocable trust now, while you are healthy, then wait out the federal look-back. The execution is unforgiving, and the timing is everything.

The two rules that decide whether a Georgia MAPT works

A MAPT protects assets only if it satisfies two conditions at once. Miss either, and the assets stay countable or the transfer triggers a penalty.

Rule 1: the trust must be irrevocable, and principal can never come back

Putting assets into a trust the grantor can never draw on is a transfer for less than fair market value, and federal law subjects exactly that kind of transfer to the look-back. Whether the trust actually takes those assets out of what Georgia counts turns on whether the grantor can still reach them, which is a drafting question. That is why a MAPT must be irrevocable and must bar any return of principal to the grantor.

It is also why a revocable living trust, the most common estate-planning trust, is not a Medicaid asset-protection tool. The grantor keeps control and can revoke it, so the assets stay within reach. Many people arrive at an elder law office believing their living trust shields them from nursing-home costs. It does not.

MAPTs are commonly drafted so the grantor keeps the right to receive trust income while principal stays out of reach; income and resources are tested separately, and Georgia's income test is covered in the next section. Who serves as trustee is a drafting decision rather than a single bright-line federal rule, and Georgia elder law attorneys typically name an independent trustee (an adult child, a professional trustee, or a trust company) so that the grantor retains no discretion over principal. Ask your attorney what the trustee arrangement in your own draft does to the countability analysis rather than assuming any one answer.

Rule 2: the five-year look-back and the timing trap

Under 42 U.S.C. 1396p(c), Georgia Medicaid applies a 60-month (five-year) look-back to assets transferred for less than fair market value, and a transfer into a MAPT falls squarely inside that rule. The penalty for a transfer during the window is a period of Medicaid ineligibility, calculated by dividing the transferred value by the state's average monthly private-pay nursing-facility cost.

The trap is when the penalty starts. For transfers made on or after February 8, 2006, the penalty period begins on the later of the transfer date or the date the applicant is otherwise eligible and receiving institutional-level care. In plain terms: a MAPT funded too close to the need does not just fail to help, it actively hurts, because the months of ineligibility land while the family is already paying for the nursing home. Federal law allows an undue-hardship waiver only where imposing the penalty would deprive the applicant of medical care or the necessities of life, a narrow standard rather than a general escape hatch.

The lesson is blunt: a MAPT only protects assets if it is funded and the 60 months have fully run before care is needed. If a serious diagnosis is already in hand, the five-year wait is not available, and other tools fit better.

What income you keep, and the Georgia income cap

A MAPT lets the grantor retain the trust's income, but income is treated very differently from principal under Georgia's rules. Georgia is an income-cap state for institutional and waiver Medicaid: an applicant whose income meets or exceeds the Medicaid Cap (the special income limit, set at 300% of the federal benefit rate, $2,982 per month for an individual in 2026) is otherwise ineligible regardless of assets.

Retained trust income counts toward that test, and toward the applicant's share of cost (patient liability) once on Medicaid. An applicant over the cap can still qualify by routing the excess into a Qualified Income Trust (QIT, also called a Miller trust). Georgia has allowed QITs since September 1, 2004; the QIT must hold only the applicant's income, be irrevocable, and name the Georgia Department of Community Health (DCH) as remainder beneficiary up to what Medicaid paid for the person's care. Income placed in a QIT is not counted for eligibility, provided the trust holds only the applicant's own income and the state receives whatever remains at death, up to the total Medicaid paid on that person's behalf.

A MAPT and a QIT solve different problems. The MAPT handles assets (principal); the QIT handles income that exceeds the cap. A grantor who keeps trust income may need both.

Does a Georgia Medicaid Asset Protection Trust avoid estate recovery?

Do not assume it does. This is the claim most often made for these trusts, and in Georgia it is the one that deserves the hardest look. Under federal law at 42 U.S.C. 1396p(b), enacted in 1993, every state must recover from the estate of a deceased enrollee who was 55 or older when they received nursing-facility, home and community-based, or related services. A state's estate definition must include probate assets and may, at the state's option, be expanded to reach other assets in which the person held any legal title or interest at the time of death, including property passing by joint tenancy, life estate, or living trust.

Georgia took the expanded option. Under O.C.G.A. 49-4-147.1 and the Department of Community Health rule at Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. Chapter 111-3-8, Georgia defines the estate as all real and personal property under the probate code plus property passing by joint tenancy, right of survivorship, life estate, survivorship, trust, annuity, Individual Retirement Accounts, homestead or any other arrangement. Trusts are named in that rule by type. So the familiar reasoning that an asset is in a trust, and therefore out of probate, and therefore out of Georgia's reach does not hold up on its own here, and any advice describing Georgia as a probate-only recovery state is wrong. Our Georgia Medicaid Estate Recovery guide walks through the full rule.

What actually decides the outcome is what the grantor still held at death, because the federal expanded option reaches an asset only to the extent of an interest the person held at that moment. A trust the grantor completely and permanently parted from stands on much stronger ground than one with strings still attached. That distinction matters here, because the standard MAPT design keeps the grantor's right to receive trust income, and many keep a right to go on living in the home. Those are retained interests, and they are exactly the kind of arrangement Georgia's definition is written to reach. Treat estate-recovery protection as something your own trust document has to earn, and ask a Georgia elder law attorney what Georgia could claim against your specific trust at death.

Two limits apply no matter how the trust is drafted. Recovery can only happen after the death of a surviving spouse, and not while there is a surviving child who is under 21, blind, or permanently and totally disabled. And Georgia waives recovery against the first $25,000 of any estate for deaths on or after July 1, 2018.

A Georgia MAPT versus the cheaper alternatives

A MAPT is the most rigid and expensive of several tools. For many families a simpler mechanism does the job without a five-year wait or a permanent surrender of principal.

Tool Five-year wait? What it keeps out of countable assets Best when
Medicaid Asset Protection Trust Yes Home and most assets, irrevocably Healthy grantor, 5+ year horizon, can give up principal
Life estate deed Yes The home only Only the home needs protection; family is stable
Spousal transfer / CSRA No Assets shifted to the at-home spouse Married couple, one spouse needs care
Caregiver-child home transfer No The home An adult child lived in the home for the 2 years before the parent entered a facility and gave the care that kept the parent there
Spend-down No Nothing long-term; buys eligibility Smaller estates; care is needed soon

Spousal transfers. Georgia penalizes no transfer to the community spouse, or to anyone else for that spouse's sole benefit. Under the spousal-impoverishment rules at 42 U.S.C. 1396r-5, the at-home (community) spouse in 2026 may keep a Community Spouse Resource Allowance between $32,532 and $162,660, a state-elected figure within that federal band, with no trust required.

The caregiver-child exception. Under 42 U.S.C. 1396p(c)(2)(A)(iv), a parent can transfer the home, penalty-free, to a son or daughter who lived in the parent's home for at least two years immediately before the parent became institutionalized, and who, as the state determines, provided care that let the parent stay at home rather than enter a facility. Where it applies, this protects the home from the look-back penalty with no trust required. It is a transfer-penalty exception, though, and not a permanent shield: the separate caregiver-child rule inside the estate-recovery statute at 42 U.S.C. 1396p(b)(2)(B)(ii) restricts when a state may recover, allowing adjustment or recovery only at a time when no qualifying son or daughter is lawfully residing in the home, having lived there continuously since the parent's admission to the medical institution.

Spend-down. Georgia operates a Medically Needy ABD pathway that uses an income level to determine an applicant's excess income, or spenddown. A person whose countable income exceeds the standard qualifies by incurring medical expenses equal to the excess, with no five-year wait. Spend-down does not preserve assets long-term, but it is the right answer when care is needed soon.

The home may already be protected. The 2026 Medicaid home-equity limit for long-term-care eligibility ranges from a federal minimum of $752,000 to a state-elected maximum of $1,130,000, indexed annually. A home below the applicable limit is an exempt resource during the owner's life, so a trust is not always needed just to keep the house while alive. Watch the direction of travel: beginning January 1, 2028, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (Public Law 119-21) will cap the maximum a state may elect at $1,000,000 for non-agricultural homes, regardless of indexing, so a state at today's maximum is scheduled to fall rather than keep rising, while a home on a lot zoned for agricultural use stays under the indexed rules.

Two Georgia scenarios

These illustrative scenarios show how timing decides the outcome. They are hypothetical and do not use any one family's figures.

Scenario 1: the trust funded in time. A healthy widow in Savannah with a paid-off home and investment savings funds a MAPT, naming her daughter as trustee and remainder beneficiary and keeping the right to live in the home and receive trust income. She stays healthy well past the five-year mark. Years later she needs nursing-home care and applies for Georgia Medicaid. Because the trust was funded more than 60 months earlier, it is outside the look-back, the assets are not countable, and they pass to her daughter.

Scenario 2: the trust funded too late. A man in Atlanta funds a MAPT only after his spouse is diagnosed with early Alzheimer's. Within three years she needs nursing-home care, and the transfer falls inside the five-year look-back. The penalty period begins once she is otherwise eligible and in the facility, so the family must private-pay during the months of ineligibility, the most expensive stretch of all. A mistimed MAPT left them worse off than spend-down or a spousal transfer would have.

Common Georgia MAPT mistakes

  • Making the trust revocable. A revocable trust gives no Medicaid protection. The trust must be explicitly and permanently irrevocable.
  • Keeping a path to principal. Any provision that could return principal to the grantor makes all principal countable and defeats the trust.
  • Naming yourself trustee without advice. A trustee arrangement that leaves the grantor discretion over principal can undo the whole point of the trust. Most Georgia MAPTs use an independent trustee; have your attorney confirm what your own draft does.
  • Funding within five years of need. The 60-month look-back penalty lands during the care stay. This is the costliest timing error.
  • Forgetting the income cap. A grantor who keeps trust income may still be over Georgia's Medicaid Cap of $2,982 per month and need a QIT to qualify.
  • Using a MAPT when a simpler tool fits. A spousal transfer, caregiver-child transfer, or spend-down often achieves the goal without a trust.

A MAPT also carries income-tax and capital-gains consequences, including how stepped-up basis at death and the home-sale capital-gains exclusion are treated. Those are tax questions for a CPA, not Medicaid rules, and should be reviewed before any home is transferred.

What Georgia families should do next

If you are a healthy senior with assets you want to protect, start by getting an honest read on your time horizon and your alternatives:

  • Consult a Georgia elder law attorney before transferring anything. Ask for a written fee estimate; costs vary by attorney and complexity.
  • Be realistic about the five-year wait. If a serious diagnosis is already in hand, a MAPT is likely the wrong tool, and spend-down or spousal transfers fit better.
  • Check the cheaper options first. Married couples should price out the CSRA; families with a live-in caregiver child should look at the home exception.
  • Coordinate the tax side with a CPA, and confirm the estate-recovery treatment with your attorney rather than assuming the trust avoids it.

For application questions, contact the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS), which determines Medicaid eligibility, through the DHS/DFCS Customer Contact Center at 1-877-423-4746, or reach DCH Medicaid Member Services at 1-866-211-0950.,

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a revocable living trust protect my assets from a Georgia nursing home?

No. A revocable trust leaves the grantor free to undo it and take the assets back, so it does no Medicaid asset protection. Protection requires an irrevocable trust drafted so principal can never return to the grantor, and funded more than 60 months before applying so that the transfer falls outside the federal look-back.

How does the five-year look-back apply to a MAPT?

Georgia Medicaid reviews asset transfers in the 60 months before a long-term-care application. A transfer into a MAPT is a transfer for less than fair market value, so it must happen at least five years before applying to avoid a penalty; transfers more than 60 months out are not counted.

Can I be the trustee of my own MAPT?

Usually not, and this is a question for your attorney rather than one with a single flat federal answer. What matters is that the grantor keeps no ability to reach principal, so Georgia MAPTs are typically drafted with an independent trustee (an adult child, a professional trustee, or a trust company). Do not assume a particular trustee arrangement is safe without a Georgia elder law attorney reviewing the trust language.

Can I keep income from the trust?

MAPTs are usually drafted so the grantor keeps the trust's income. The catch is that in income-cap Georgia that income still counts toward the Medicaid Cap of $2,982 per month and toward patient liability once on Medicaid. An applicant at or above the cap can shelter the excess in a Qualified Income Trust, which must be irrevocable, hold only the applicant's own income, and name DCH as remainder beneficiary up to what Medicaid paid.

Does a MAPT stop Georgia Medicaid estate recovery?

Do not count on it. Georgia does not limit recovery to probate assets: its estate definition reaches property passing by joint tenancy, right of survivorship, life estate, survivorship, trust, annuity, Individual Retirement Accounts, homestead or any other arrangement. Keeping assets out of probate is therefore not enough on its own in Georgia. What matters is whether the grantor still held an interest in the trust property at death, which is a question about how your trust was drafted, so put it to a Georgia elder law attorney. Georgia does waive recovery against the first $25,000 of an estate for deaths on or after July 1, 2018.

When is a MAPT the wrong choice?

When care is needed within five years, when assets are modest, when the grantor needs continued access to the principal, or when a simpler federal tool fits, such as a transfer to a spouse, who may keep resources up to the Community Spouse Resource Allowance, the caregiver-child home exception, or spend-down.

Where to get help with Medicaid asset protection in Georgia

Georgia Department of Community Health (DCH) Medicaid Member Services for coverage and benefit questions. 1-866-211-0950https://www.gabar.org/about-the-bar/contact-us dch.georgia.gov
Georgia Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) Determines Medicaid eligibility and processes applications. dfcs.georgia.gov
State Bar of Georgia The State Bar cannot refer an attorney itself, but it publishes the local and voluntary bar associations, many of which run attorney referral services. 404-527-8700 (toll-free 1-800-334-6865)https://www.gabar.org/about-the-bar/contact-us www.gabar.org
Georgia Legal Services Program Free civil legal help in the 154 counties outside metro Atlanta. GLSP does not represent residents of Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton, or Gwinnett counties, and clients generally have income no more than 200% of the federal poverty level or are 60 or older. 1-833-457-7529 (statewide intake); Atlanta office 1-800-498-9469https://www.gabar.org/about-the-bar/contact-us, www.glsp.org
Eldercare Locator Connects families to local aging and long-term-care services. 1-800-677-1116https://eldercare.acl.gov/home · Accessed Aug 7, 2026 eldercare.acl.gov/home
National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA) Member directory for locating an elder law attorney.

Learn More

MedicaidGeorgia Medicaid Programs OverviewGeorgia Medicaid 2026: income and asset limits, the EDWP waiver (CCSP and SOURCE), Pathways to Coverage, Miller Trusts, estate recovery, and how to apply. MedicaidGeorgia Medicaid Asset Spend-Down StrategiesGeorgia Medicaid asset spend-down strategies for 2026: the $2,000 asset limit, exempt assets, Miller Trusts, and how to qualify without losing everything. MedicaidGeorgia Medicaid Asset Transfer PenaltyHow the Georgia Medicaid transfer penalty and 60-month look-back work in 2026: the penalty divisor, exempt transfers, and how to cure a penalty. MedicaidGeorgia Medicaid Estate RecoveryGeorgia Medicaid estate recovery in 2026: the expanded estate definition, the $25,000 waiver, federal exemptions, and how to answer a notice of claim. MedicaidGeorgia Medicaid Life Estate DeedHow a Georgia life estate deed works with Medicaid in 2026: the 60-month look-back, estate recovery protection, step-up basis, and when a trust fits better. MedicaidGeorgia Medicaid Caregiver-Child ExemptionGeorgia Medicaid's caregiver child exemption in 2026: how an adult child who gave 2+ years of care can receive the family home without a transfer penalty. MedicaidGeorgia Medicaid Special Needs TrustCompare Georgia first-party (d4A), pooled (d4C), and third-party special needs trusts plus ABLE accounts, with the 2024 SSI food rule and 2026 limits. MedicaidGeorgia Medicaid Miller TrustGeorgia Medicaid Miller Trust (Qualified Income Trust) in 2026: who needs one above the $2,982 income limit, how to set it up, and the monthly funding rules. MedicaidHow to Apply for Georgia MedicaidHow to apply for Georgia Medicaid in 2026: Georgia Gateway, your local DFCS office, Form 700, the documents you need, processing timelines, and how to appeal.

Find personalized help with Georgia Medicaid asset protection planning at brevy.com.

The information on Brevy.com is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional legal, financial, or medical advice. Rules vary by state and program and change frequently. Always verify with the relevant agency or a qualified professional. Brevy is not a law firm, financial advisor, or healthcare provider.

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Brevy Care Team

Expert eldercare guidance from Brevy's team of healthcare professionals and researchers.