What is the Medicaid Estate Recovery Program?
The Medicaid Estate Recovery Program (MERP) is required by the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 (OBRA ’93) to recover the costs paid by Medicaid for long-term care benefits received by certain Medicaid recipients. All states are federally mandated to implement the program. In Texas, the Health and Human Services Commission is the state Medicaid agency; the Department of Aging and Disability Services is the state’s MERP implementation agency. The funds collected by the state will be used to pay for future Medicaid community-based and institutional long-term care services.
