SR 23-16 Dated 03/23

STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES – DIVISION OF ECONOMIC AND HOUSING STABILITY (DEHS)

Bureau of family assistance (bfa)

INTER-DEPARTMENT COMMUNICATION

SUMMARY

This SR establishes policy regarding ABLE accounts, also known as STABLE accounts. New Hampshire recognizes STABLE accounts as STABLE-NH accounts.

BACKGROUND

A STABLE Account is a national ABLE plan and is available to residents of all 50 states. Where a STABLE-NH account is only available to residents of New Hampshire.

STABLE-NH accounts allow certain people with disabilities to open accounts that will generally be exempt from taxation.

Funds from these accounts can be used to pay for qualified disability expenses (QDE), which are expenses related to the designated beneficiary as a result of living with disabilities. QDEs can include medical, housing, transportation, employment training, education, personal support services, food, assistive technology, and other quality of life expenses.

POLICY

Funds in ABLE/STABLE-NH accounts are excluded resources when determining eligibility for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), State Supplemental Program (SSP), Medical Assistance (MA), Medicaid Savings Plans (MSP) and Financial Assistance to Needy Families (FANF).

The first $100,000 in an ABLE/STABLE-NH account is excluded by SSI, meaning their SSI payments will be suspended until the balance is reduced below the $100,000. While the beneficiary’s eligibility for SSI financial assistance is suspended, this suspension does not impact eligibility for any BFA programs. 

Eligibility Requirements

ABLE accounts are available to blind or disabled individuals of any age, their disability must have occurred before the age of 26.

An individual is allowed to only have one ABLE account. The individual may open an ABLE account in New Hampshire as a STABLE-NH account, or in any other state’s ABLE program. ABLE accounts from other states must be treated the same as STABLE-NH accounts.

STABLE-NH Account Contributions

·    Individuals can contribute their own resources to their own ABLE/STABLE-NH account (including resources that would otherwise be countable; doing so allows them to reduce their countable resources).

·        Individuals can contribute their own income to their own ABLE/STABLE-NH account, however, this does not make the income excluded and there is no allowable reduction in countable income for determining eligibility.

·       Third-party contributions to an ABLE/STABLE-NH account or disbursements from an individual’s Special Needs Trust or Pooled Trust to their ABLE/STABLE-NH account are not counted as a resource or as income to the applicant or recipient.

Example: An applicant receives a monthly SSDI payment of $1,200 and applies APTD financial and medical assistance, as well as SNAP. The applicant’s SSDI is direct deposited into their ABLE/STABLE-NH account, and the balance in that account is $5,500. After the direct deposit, the current balance is now $6,700. The $5,500 is an excluded resource (and any interest is not counted as unearned income); however, the $1,200 monthly SSDI is countable unearned income for program eligibility.

·       There is no special treatment for contributions made to another person’s STABLE-NH account; therefore, someone contributing to another individual’s STABLE-NH account and then applying for Medicaid coverage for themselves may find that the contribution is considered an asset transfer.

Example: Carly transfers $3,700 from her personal checking account into David’s STABLE-NH account. Carly then applies for assistance. This transfer of assets must be accounted for when determining Carly’s eligibility.

STABLE-NH Account Distributions

Distributions from ABLE/STABLE-NH accounts are not counted as a resource or as Income, as long as they are used for QDEs for the individual. The terms of an ABLE/STABLE-NH account require the individual to use the account distributions on qualified QDEs. Any funds not used on QDEs are countable as unearned income; however, because QDEs cover a wide range of qualifying expenses, the likelihood of a distribution not being used on QDEs would be rare.  

Estate Recovery

Funds remaining in an ABLE/STABLE-NH account upon the death of the account beneficiary are subject to existing estate recovery policy.

NEW HEIGHTS & NH EASY SYSTEMS PROCEDURES AND IMPLEMENTATION

New HEIGHTS under: Application Entry/Resources/Liquid Resources, in the ‘Liquid Resource Information’ section will have a new dropdown option under Type called “ABLE/STABLE NH”.

NH EASY will also have a new dropdown option added in the Assets section, for the question “What type of liquid asset is this?” called “ABLE/STABLE NH”.

NOTE: New HEIGHTS is in the process of creating these new dropdowns, a System Alert will be issued when available. In the meantime select “other” on the Liquid Resource Screen, enter bank name as “ABLE/STABLE-NH” and once the account is verified as an ABLE/STABLE-NH account, the liquid resource can then be marked as “inaccessible”.

POLICY MANUAL REVISIONS

Adult Assistance Manual

Section 411 COMMON TYPES OF RESOURCES: BANK ACCOUNTS

Section 413 LESS COMMON TYPES OF RESOURCES: ABLE/STABLE-NH Accounts

Section 415 TRANSFER OF ASSETS

Glossary Word-Q

Family Assistance Manual

Section 409 COMMON TYPES OF RESOURCES: BANK ACCOUNTS

Section 411 LESS COMMON TYPES OF RESOURCES: ABLE/STABLE-NH Accounts

Section 415 TRANSFER OF PROPERTY

Glossary Word-Q

Food Stamp Manual

Section 409 COMMON TYPES OF RESOURCES: BANK ACCOUNTS

Section 411 LESS COMMON TYPES OF RESOURCES: ABLE/STABLE-NH Accounts

Section 415 TRANSFER OF PROPERTY

Glossary Word-Q

Medical Assistance Manual

Section 411 COMMON TYPES OF RESOURCES: BANK ACCOUNTS

Section 413 LESS COMMON TYPES OF RESOURCES: ABLE/STABLE-NH Accounts

Section 415 TRANSFER OF ASSETS

Glossary Word-Q

FIELD IMPLEMENTATION

·        Verify the account type only at initial eligibility or upon learning the client has opened an ABLE/STABLE-NH account.

·        Family Service Specialists need to request at initial application and at every redetermination a statement either verbally or in writing, from the client attesting as to whether or not all disbursements were for QDE’s. Self-attestation is acceptable as to whether or not the client’s disbursements were used for a QDE.

·        If the client indicates that not all disbursements were for QDE’s, review with your supervisor and they can contact the Policy Development Unit for guidance and treatment. This is not required for passive redeterminations.

·        Case comments must be added regarding the QDE disbursements.

·        Clients who intentionally provide false statements are to be referred to the office of Special Investigations.

TRAINING

No special training is planned or needed.

DISPOSITION

This SR may be destroyed or deleted after its contents have been noted and the revised manual topics released by this SR have been posted to the On-Line manuals.

DISTRIBUTION

This SR will be distributed according to the electronic distribution list for Bureau of Family Assistance policy releases. The SR and revised On-Line Manuals will be available for agency staff in the On-Line Manual Library, and for public access on the Internet at https://www.dhhs.nh.gov/sr_htm/sr.htm, effective April 1, 2023.

BFA/DMS:RS