Updated September 5, 2026. Quick answer: Maryland’s Medicaid manual sets the individual resource amount for an institutionalized Medicaid applicant at $2,500, above the $2,000 federal default. The primary document confirming this figure is dated 2014, and no newer official restatement was located this session, so treat this as the best primary-sourced figure available, not a guarantee it has never changed since.
The figure, and the document it comes from
The Maryland Medicaid Manual, Section 1000 (“Eligibility for Institutionalized Persons”), finalized May 15, 2014, states: “This amount prevents the institutional spouse from exceeding the allowable $2500 resource amount.” That sentence appears in the context of the couple’s total-resource calculation, and names $2,500 as the institutionalized applicant’s own resource ceiling.
Why this page discloses the document’s age up front
A 2014 manual section is twelve years old as of this page’s publication. This session searched for, but did not find, a newer Maryland Medicaid eligibility manual section restating this figure. That does not mean the figure has changed, only that it has not been independently reconfirmed; a reader relying on this number for an active application should confirm it directly with Maryland Medicaid before treating it as final.
The spend-down pathway named in the same manual
The same Section 1000 describes an “Available Income Greater than Cost of Care” determination and a spend-down eligibility pathway, confirming Maryland runs a medically-needy-style mechanism for applicants over the income limit.
| Citation | Maryland Medicaid Manual, Section 1000 – Eligibility for Institutionalized Persons (finalized May 15, 2014) |
| What it says | “This amount prevents the institutional spouse from exceeding the allowable $2500 resource amount.” |
This page covers the applicant’s own asset limit. The amount an at-home spouse gets to keep is a separate, usually much larger, figure: see the Maryland community spouse resource allowance and what happens to a spouse’s money when the other spouse needs a nursing home.
Every citation on this page was read directly from the state’s own Medicaid agency, administrative code, or official eligibility manual this session. General information, not legal or financial advice; a figure this specific can change with a budget cycle or a rule amendment, and a county or state caseworker has the final say on any individual application.