Updated August 27, 2026. Quick answer: Illinois is the state where there is no single number to look up. For nursing home cases the state’s policy manual tells caseworkers to use “the private rate at the facility where the person lives” – so two Illinois families who gave away the same amount can end up with different penalty lengths.
What Illinois publishes
| What the state lists | Figure |
|---|---|
| What the Policy Manual directs caseworkers to divide by, nursing home cases | the private rate at the facility where the person lives |
| How the Worker Action Guide words the same step | the average monthly private pay rate |
| The form the calculation is done on | Transfer of Resources Worksheet (HFS 3489) |
| Rounding | rounding up to hundredths (2 decimal places) |
| Partial month | multiply the fraction by 30 to calculate the number of days in the partial month |
| Maximum penalty period | There is no maximum penalty period |
| Where the rate comes from for supportive living and waiver cases | Bureau of Long Term Care at (217) 782-0545 |
How the penalty period is calculated
- Add up the total uncompensated amount of all non-allowable transfers.
- Divide that total by the average monthly private pay rate, rounding up to hundredths (2 decimal places) if necessary.
- For nursing home cases, use the private rate at the facility where the person lives.
- For supportive living facility cases, and for people applying for or receiving Department on Aging home and community-based waiver services, the manual directs the caseworker to contact the Bureau of Long Term Care for the long term care private rate to use in the calculation.
- If the result is not a whole number of months, multiply the fraction by 30 to calculate the number of days in the partial month.
- When multiple non-allowable transfers are reported, combine them and treat them as a single transaction, and determine a single penalty period.
- There is no maximum penalty period.
Once you have the figure above, the Medicaid penalty period calculator does the arithmetic. This page is the Illinois rate record; the calculator is the class parent.
Get a second opinion before money or property moves
Transfers are the part of this system that is hardest to undo, so it is worth having someone look at the timing and at what else the household holds before a gift, a sale or a deed is made final.
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What this page does not settle
- The two Illinois documents word the divisor differently. The Policy Manual says to use the private rate at the facility where the person lives; the Worker Action Guide, describing the same worksheet step, says to divide by the average monthly private pay rate. This page reports both and does not decide which one controls.
- This page makes no claim that Illinois publishes no statewide average private pay figure anywhere. It reports what these two policy documents say to use, which is a different and smaller statement.
- Because the nursing-home instruction points at a particular facility, an Illinois divisor quoted on a national comparison chart will not match any specific facility’s rate, and the same gift can produce different penalty lengths in different facilities.
- The manual routes supportive living and waiver rates through a telephone call to the Bureau of Long Term Care rather than through a published table, so those figures are not printed in the manual at all.
- Because the divisor is the facility’s own rate, the only way to compute an Illinois penalty in advance is to ask the specific facility for its current private rate.
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
- Illinois Department of Human Services, PM 07-02-20-d: Penalty Period Due to Non-Allowable Transfers (the policy)
- Illinois Department of Human Services, WAG 07-02-20-d: Penalty Period Due to Non-Allowable Transfers (the procedure)
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.
A transfer penalty is a separate test from the income standard that decides eligibility in the first place. For what Illinois uses as that standard, and the state document it comes from, see Medicaid nursing home income limit in Illinois ($1,330/Month).
Related: Illinois’s Medicaid home equity limit for a single applicant with no spouse or dependent child at home.
Related: Illinois’s Medicaid Personal Needs Allowance; the amount a nursing-facility resident keeps from their own income each month.