The qualifying has been done as far as income is concerned and the money in the bank is because she has had no expenses in a rehab facility under medicare at least for another month. The funds are SS checks that have accumulated. They have not done a financial check on her yet, only the monthly income check. I was advised to use the money to purchase perhaps a scooter for her or a new wardrobe. Is this all feasible?
MediCARE copay not medicaid. Ok so mom is in a facility for rehab, right? If so at some point ( 21 days) Medicare will stop paying 100% benefit coverage; it goes to 80/20. If mom has a good secondary or "gap" policy, it will pay the 20%. BUT if mom does not have secondary coverage, she will get a bill for the 20% due under Medicare rules. I'd look to doing that first to spend down to $ 1,800 left.
Check on this but most states allow them to retain 2k in assets for the rest of their lifetime. If you are going to have it such that mom continues to get her income directly depsited into her bank account and then you or her DPOA write a check each month to the facility for moms required copay, having $ 1,800 is good as the amount is likely high enough so no monthly service charges and if there is something that comes up needed for mom which either Medicaid does not pay for (dental) or Medicaid takes forever to replace & provide (eyeglasses, hearing aids), mom has funds to pay for it. Like mom needs new eyeglasses ASAP so you go and get them and pay for it out of her bank account.
If you do this, you need to make sure to spend it so that it never goes above 2k. It will build by whatever her state allows as the personal needs allowance. For my mom it was $ 60 a month. 2k is the usual maximum allowed as an asset.
Scooters....some facilities will not allow scooters. Walkers & other self propelled walking aids are ok. But motorized scooters if they have dementia will be a problem as the scooter gets the better of them.
If mom does not have a pre need funeral & burial done, that too is a good spend down. Neither the full 4K or $ 2,200 (if she sets aside $1,800) will pay the entire cost of a traditional funeral. Could pay for most of a cremation though.
Personally I'd go with $ towards funeral first then dental. Either easily all the $.