Georgia Medicaid Transfer Penalty Divisor: $11,122 a Month

Updated August 27, 2026. Quick answer: Georgia divides by $11,122.00 a month, effective 4-26, and then does something most states do not: it applies two different rules to the leftover fraction depending on when the asset moved. Under the older rule the manual says drop all fractions; under the current one it says do not.

What Georgia publishes

How the penalty period is calculated

• Section 2342 of the ABD Medicaid manual states the arithmetic the same way for both rules: “Determine the number of months of the penalty by dividing the total uncompensated value (UV) of the transferred resource by the average Georgia private pay rate (See Appendix A.1).” The rate itself is not in the section – it is one row of one chart in the appendix, and the appendix is reissued on its own schedule.
• Which rule applies is decided by the date of the transfer, not the date of the application. Assets transferred on or after 2/8/06 fall under the DRA ’05 rule; assets transferred before that date fall under OBRA ’93.
• The two rules treat the remainder in opposite directions. OBRA ’93 says to drop all fractions. DRA ’05 says DO NOT drop fractions, and adds that a penalty is determined “even if the penalty does not result in a full month of penalty”.
• A penalty is not imposed until the applicant is determined Medicaid eligible in every aspect except for the transfer, and for applicants the penalty begins with the later of the month the resource was transferred or the month the applicant is otherwise eligible.
• For someone already receiving Medicaid, the penalty begins the month after the month of discovery if timely notice can be given, or the second month after discovery if it cannot.
• During whole penalty months the applicant is Medicaid eligible but there is no vendor payment, and the manual says the applicant is responsible for paying the private pay rate to the nursing home. In the month a fraction of a penalty falls, the vendor payment is made and the patient liability is increased by the dollar value of that partial penalty instead.
• The manual states there is no limit to the number of months a penalty may last, and that if the applicant leaves the long-term-care living arrangement the penalty continues to run even if they are no longer receiving any kind of Medicaid.
• If a community spouse later enters long-term care, the manual says the penalty may be shared between the spouses in the most advantageous way, and if one spouse dies or otherwise loses eligibility the remaining eligible spouse completes the rest of that penalty period.

Once you have the figure above, the Medicaid penalty period calculator does the arithmetic. This page is the Georgia rate record; the calculator is the class parent.

What this page does not settle

• The divisor and the appendix that carries it move on different clocks. The row is stamped 4-26 while the appendix itself is stamped Effective Date: July 2026 and last reviewed in MT 80, so the appendix can be reissued without the divisor changing and the divisor’s own effective date is the one that matters.
• One page, sixteen tables, and one of them is a trap. Appendix A1 also prints CHART A1.7, “MONTHLY AVERAGED MEDICAID RATES FOR KATIE BECKETT”, whose Skilled Nursing Facility row reads $8,455.00 (31 days) with the same 04-26 effective stamp. That is a Medicaid rate for a different programme, not the transfer divisor, and reading the page as flat text rather than as tables can pair the wrong figure with this label.
• The section stating the method and the chart carrying the number are separately dated. Section 2342 is stamped Effective Date: April 2020 and reviewed in MT-59; the number it points at is six years newer. Nothing is wrong with that – it is how Georgia publishes – but it means a reader checking the rule’s date is not checking the rate’s date.
• This page reports what the current appendix prints. Georgia recalculates the rate and reissues the appendix, so a figure issued after the July 2026 appendix would not appear in it, and no claim is made here about whether one exists.
• The partial-month dollar amount is computed on a form this page does not reproduce. The manual sends the worker to the DRA ’05 Penalty Computation Form for whole and partial months and for the partial month dollar amount.

Eligibility is decided by the state agency on the whole file, not by this one number. Nothing here is legal advice, and no one should transfer, retitle or give away property on the strength of a worksheet.

Sources

• Georgia DFCS, Medicaid Policy Manual, Appendix A1 – ABD Financial Limits 2026, CHART A1.3 (the divisor)
• Georgia DFCS, Medicaid Policy Manual, section 2342 Transfer of Assets (the method)

Each source above was retrieved and read against the state text on August 27, 2026. Every figure on this page was checked against those bytes.