Medicaid Estate Recovery in Minnesota

Minnesota Medicaid is called Medical Assistance (MA). The Department of Human Services recovers the cost of MA-paid long-term care (nursing facility services, home and community-based services, and related hospital and prescription drug services) received by a person age 55 or older, and from younger recipients who were permanently institutionalized.

Steps to take Key facts

Steps to take when someone dies

Determine whether the deceased received MA-paid long-term care at age 55 or older, or was permanently institutionalized at a younger age.

Notify the Department of Human Services and confirm whether a recovery claim applies, including whether the expanded estate reaches life estate, joint tenancy, or transfer-on-death interests.

Address the claim as a debt of the estate before distributing assets to heirs.

Confirm whether recovery is deferred for a surviving spouse or a surviving child under 21 or a blind or permanently and totally disabled child.

Request an undue-hardship waiver from the Department if recovery would impose undue hardship under Minn. Stat. 256B.15, subd. 5.

Medicaid Estate Recovery in Minnesota: key facts

What Minnesota says6

What is recovered

Minn. Stat. 256B.15, subd. 2, reaches MA-paid nursing facility services, home and community-based services, and related hospital and prescription drug services received at age 55 or older.¹

The Department also recovers MA paid for younger recipients who were permanently institutionalized. Recovery is focused on long-term care and related services rather than all medical assistance.²

Who is subject to recovery

Recipients age 55 or older when the covered services were received, and younger recipients who resided in a medical institution for six months or longer with no medically reasonable likelihood of discharge.²

What counts as the estate

Minn. Stat. 256B.15, subd. 1a, extends recovery beyond the probate estate to the recipient's interest in real property held as a life tenant or joint tenant with right of survivorship.¹

The expanded estate under subd. 1a also includes joint accounts, pay-on-death accounts, and transfer-on-death and living-trust interests.¹

When recovery is deferred or barred

Local agencies delay recovery while a surviving spouse is living, or while there is a surviving child under age 21 or a blind or permanently and totally disabled child.²

Undue-hardship waiver

Minn. Stat. 256B.15, subd. 5, provides for an undue-hardship waiver from the Department where recovery would impose undue hardship.¹

How the state files its claim

Minn. Stat. 256B.15, subd. 3, directs that a claim "shall be filed against the estate."¹

Governing law: Minn. Stat. 256B.15

Sources2

Minnesota Medicaid estate recovery

Minnesota Department of Human Services, Medical Assistance Estate Recovery

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Verified Aug 2026

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