You are looking at a Social Security letter and a pension stub. Added together, they look like a decent month. Then someone at the nursing home mentions Medicaid, and the income line they use is about $2,982. Your parent is over it. Or your spouse is. Or you are. That is a very common place to sit in Wilton Manors. It is not the end of the conversation.

Florida still has a monthly income line for nursing-home Medicaid. In 2026 that line is about $2,982. The test is the gross amount, not what hits the checking account after Medicare premiums or tax withholding. Social Security plus a pension puts many people in Broward, Palm Beach, and Miami-Dade over that line even when they do not feel wealthy. Florida does not let you chip the extra income down the way some other states do. If the monthly income is over the line, the usual path is a Qualified Income Trust: a special account for the extra income that month, so the person can still qualify for coverage.

A Qualified Income Trust is not a way to hide the house. It is not a vault for the children. You put income into it — Social Security, a pension, other income that belongs to the person who needs care. You do not put the deed in it. You do not put a brokerage account in it. You do not pour already-saved cash into it to protect assets. Florida requires the document to be built a certain way. It can hold income only. It has to be irrevocable, which means you cannot unwind it later because you changed your mind. And when that person dies, what is left in the trust goes to the state, up to what Medicaid paid. That last piece is the point of the device. It is a monthly income tool. It is not an inheritance plan. The extra income is not kept for the family either. After you qualify, that money is still counted toward what the person pays the facility.

Savings are a separate test. Getting under the income line — or using this trust to do it — does not finish the application. Florida still looks at countable resources. A spouse who stays at home has different savings rules than a single applicant. An unmarried partner is not a spouse for those rules, even after many years. The house has its own rules too. None of that is solved by parking extra pension money in the income trust. Mixing those problems is how families sign the wrong paper.

You do not need a bank-by-bank tutorial from a blog. Which institutions will open the account is a meeting question. So is who should be trustee. So is whether the whole check or only the excess goes in. Those are not a public checklist. Florida's rule is simpler than the internet makes it sound. Enough of that month's income has to go into the trust, in the month it arrives, so what is left outside is under the line. The trust also has to be written so Florida will accept it. A downloaded form that puts assets in, names the kids to take what is left, or treats the trust as freely revocable is the wrong instrument.

If income is over the line, sit down with someone who drafts these for Florida Medicaid. Bring the Social Security letter, the pension statement, and a plain list of savings. We can tell you whether a Qualified Income Trust is the next step, or whether the real problem is savings, old gifts, or the house.

Free consult in person or Zoom. (954) 563-9160. Broward, Palm Beach, and Miami-Dade.

Give us a call. We can help.