Medical Expense Deduction

The medical expense deduction allows for necessary health care expenses to be deducted from a client’s gross income. 

Exception: Do not allow this deduction when a client has a medical spenddown and is privately paying LTC costs. Allow these health care expenses to be used toward meeting the medical spenddown. If these expenses are used to meet a medical spenddown, you must track and reduce the amount used from the carry forward amount.  (You will learn more about this process in the next module.)

For MA-LTC requests received on or after July 1, 2009, a deduction may be allowed for certain paid or unpaid expenses incurred within the three months prior to the month the form a client uses to request MA-LTC is received.  In addition, the amount of allowable medical expenses that exceed the amount of an individual’s income after all other deductions can be carried forward as a deduction in the future. 

Due to the complexity of this deduction, it will be discussed in-depth in the next module of this course.