Updated August 27, 2026. Quick answer: Kentucky never uses the word divisor. Its regulations define a transferred resource factor — an amount equal to the average monthly cost of nursing facility services in the state and of private pay rates for semi-private rooms at all Medicaid-participating facilities, adjusted annually. 907 KAR 20:030 divides the uncompensated value of what was transferred by that factor, and prints no amount anywhere in the rule.
What Kentucky publishes
| What the state lists | Figure |
|---|---|
| What the rule divides by | the transferred resource factor at the time of application |
| What the factor is an average of | the monthly cost of nursing facility services in the state, and private pay rates for semi-private rooms of all Medicaid participating facilities |
| How often the factor changes | adjusted annually |
| Where the factor is defined | 907 KAR 20:001, definition of “Transferred resource factor” |
| Where the division is stated | 907 KAR 20:030, Section 1 |
| Look-back for transfers on or after February 8, 2006 | 60 months preceding the baseline date |
| When the penalty period begins | the month of Medicaid eligibility for NF, ICF-IID or 1915(c) home and community based services |
| Which services the penalty reaches | NF services, ICF-IID services, and 1915(c) home and community based services |
| Adding a name to a deed | constitutes a transfer of resources |
| Current dollar figure published in the rule | none — see below |
How the penalty period is calculated
- 907 KAR 20:001 defines the term the rest of the rule turns on: a “transferred resource factor” means an amount that is equal to the average monthly cost of nursing facility services in the state at the time of application, and of private pay rates for semi-private rooms of all Medicaid participating facilities, adjusted annually.
- The semi-private room basis is the part worth noticing. Kentucky benchmarks its factor to shared-room private-pay rates at participating facilities, not to private rooms and not to a survey of all facilities in the state, so a private-room quote from one nursing home is not the number the Cabinet divides by.
- 907 KAR 20:030 Section 1(3) carries the current arithmetic: for assets transferred on or after February 8, 2006, the period of ineligibility is the number of months derived by dividing the total uncompensated value of the resources transferred by the transferred resource factor at the time of application, with a 60-month look-back preceding the baseline date.
- The clock starts late, which is the point most readers get wrong. For post-2006 transfers the period of ineligibility begins with the month of Medicaid eligibility for nursing facility, ICF-IID or 1915(c) waiver services — not with the month of the gift.
- The regulation still carries two superseded regimes above the current one: transfers on or before August 10, 1993 (a 30-month look-back, with the penalty capped at the lesser of 30 months or the computed months) and transfers between then and February 8, 2006. Reading the wrong subsection produces the wrong start date and the wrong cap.
- Section 1(5) is a single sentence with outsized consequences: the addition of another individual’s name to a deed constitutes a transfer of resources.
- Caregiver agreements are recognised but tightly conditioned. Section 1(7) requires the agreement to have been notarized, to identify and specify the cost of each caregiver service, to bar payment for services not recognised in the agreement or duplicated by another source, and to require the caregiver to repay the cost of any service not actually provided. Anything unrepaid is treated as a transfer.
- Resources sold by contract, including land contracts and contracts for deed, must be actuarially sound, must not contain balloon payments and must not forgive the debt if the sale terminates. Section 1(8) treats a contract failing any of those as a disposal for less than fair market value.
- If a spouse’s transfer creates an ineligibility period for the institutionalized spouse and the other spouse is later institutionalized while part of it remains, Section 1(6) apportions the remaining period between them, and the remaining spouse serves the balance if the other is no longer subject to it.
Once you have the figure above, the Medicaid penalty period calculator does the arithmetic. This page is the Kentucky rate record; the calculator is the class parent.
What this page does not settle
- This page carries no dollar figure because Kentucky’s rule carries none, and that was checked across the whole regulation rather than in the divisor sentence alone. 907 KAR 20:030 extracts to 48,245 characters containing zero dollar amounts, and the phrase “private pay” does not appear in it at all — it appears only in the definition of the factor in 907 KAR 20:001.
- The figure exists and the Cabinet adjusts it annually; the regulation simply is not where it is printed. Because the rule ties the factor to the time of application, the operative amount is whichever one the Cabinet was applying on that date, and this page does not take that number from commercial sources that do not name a Kentucky document.
- Widely republished daily figures for Kentucky circulate online. This page omits them deliberately: none of the ones checked cites a Kentucky issuance, and Kentucky’s own definition describes a MONTHLY average, so a daily rate is already a step away from the defined term.
- The Legislative Research Commission’s current rendering of 907 KAR 20:001 shows two paragraph numbers side by side for each definition, which is how it displays a regulation with an amendment in progress. That is why this page cites the definition by its defined term rather than by a paragraph number that may shift.
- The penalty reaches long-term-care services, not the whole programme, and it reaches waiver services as well as institutional ones. A reader on a 1915(c) waiver is inside this rule, which is not true in every state.
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
- Kentucky Administrative Regulations 907 KAR 20:030, Trust and transferred resource requirements for Medicaid other than MAGI, Section 1
- Kentucky Administrative Regulations 907 KAR 20:001, Definitions for 907 KAR Chapter 20, definition of “Transferred resource factor”
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 Kentucky uses as that standard, and the state document it comes from, see Medicaid nursing home income limit in Kentucky ($2,982/Month).
Related: Kentucky’s Medicaid home equity limit for a single applicant with no spouse or dependent child at home.
Related: Kentucky’s Medicaid Personal Needs Allowance; the amount a nursing-facility resident keeps from their own income each month.