Illinois Private-Pay Runway Calculator
At the private-pay rate, how long until Illinois Medicaid could begin? Every piece below can be linked to, so it opens in a window on your reader's screen, current as of the record. No form to fill in.
2026 law · Reviewed September 4, 2026 · The full page, with methodology and sources · the terms · All tools
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Countable assets, the monthly rate, the household's income, and whether a spouse is at home in; what may be kept, the spend-down, the monthly gap, and the months of runway out. In a frame it carries no cookies, no tracking, and a visible link back to the methodology. Your site has to allow frames; most do. The link that opens it in a small window is on the professionals page.
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- In plain words.
- Medicaid pays for nursing-home care only after most of a person's savings are spent. Illinois lets the person keep a small amount, lets a spouse still at home keep a larger fixed amount plus the house and a car, and counts everything else. This tool takes the countable savings, the monthly cost of care, and the household's income, and divides the amount that must be spent by the monthly shortfall to give the months of private pay ahead.
- Why it matters.
- Families facing a nursing-home bill want to know two things: how long the money lasts, and what the spouse at home will be left with. The runway answers the first and shows the second, and it is the number to bring to an elder-law attorney.
- An example.
- A couple with $400,000 in savings, a $9,000 monthly bill, and $3,000 of monthly income: about $240,000 must be spent at $6,000 a month, roughly 40 months, before Medicaid could begin, with the spouse at home keeping about $160,000.
- Where it stops.
- It is division, not an application. It does not include the look-back on gifts, the planning that elder-law attorneys do to protect more, income rules for the spouse at home, or the cost rising each year. The figures are this year's Illinois numbers.
The facts
Six quotable sentences on the road to Illinois Medicaid, 2026 figures.
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- Illinois Medicaid pays for nursing-home care once countable assets are down to $17,500 for the person in care. A spouse at home may keep $143,172 on top of that (the community spouse resource standard), the home up to $752,000 of equity, one car, and personal effects.
- Countable assets are everything else: bank and brokerage accounts, retirement accounts, cash value in life insurance, a second property. Illinois counts a couple's assets together whichever spouse owns them.
- The runway is arithmetic: countable assets above what may be kept, divided by the monthly gap between the care bill and the income that pays toward it.
- Example: a couple with $400,000 of countable assets, a $9,000 monthly private-pay rate, and $3,000 of monthly income: $239,328 to spend down at $6,000 a month, about 40 months, a little over 3.3 years.
- Once on Medicaid, the person in care keeps $60 a month, and the spouse at home may be allotted enough of the couple's income to reach $4,067 a month (the maintenance allowance).
- Spending down is not the only path: paying off the home, buying an exempt car, prepaying a funeral, and certain annuities and transfers are what elder-law attorneys plan, inside the 60-month look-back that the penalty calculator covers.
What may be kept, 2026
The limits that set the spend-down.
The button shows exactly what your reader sees when they click the link. Paste the link where a link goes; it opens this table in a small window, always current as of the record, with the attribution and a link to the full page. Nothing to copy out, nothing to update later.
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| Figure | Amount | Who |
|---|---|---|
| Countable assets the person in care may keep | $17,500 | The applicant |
| Community spouse resource standard | $143,172 | The spouse at home |
| Home equity limit | $752,000 | The home, exempt up to this |
| Community spouse maintenance allowance | $4,067 a month | The spouse at home, from the couple's income |
| Personal needs allowance | $60 a month | The person in care |
| Look-back for gifts | 60 months | Transfers reviewed at application |
Cite and link.
The clean address, a citation generated from the record so it can never carry a stale review date, and an address for every section so you can point a reader at the exact table or method.
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- Link
- https://consideratecapital.com/tools/medicaid-runway-illinois
- Citation
- Considerate Capital, "Illinois Private-Pay Runway Calculator," reviewed September 4, 2026, https://consideratecapital.com/tools/medicaid-runway-illinois.
Link to a section
- The calculator https://consideratecapital.com/tools/medicaid-runway-illinois#calculator
- The facts https://consideratecapital.com/tools/medicaid-runway-illinois#facts
- What may be kept https://consideratecapital.com/tools/medicaid-runway-illinois#key-numbers
- How the spend-down works https://consideratecapital.com/tools/medicaid-runway-illinois#how-it-works
- Methodology https://consideratecapital.com/tools/medicaid-runway-illinois#methodology
- Sources https://consideratecapital.com/tools/medicaid-runway-illinois#sources
- Revision history https://consideratecapital.com/tools/medicaid-runway-illinois#revision-history
Everything here reads from one reviewed record, so a copied piece carries its year and its review date. When the law moves, the embed updates by itself; a copied table or chart keeps the year in its caption. Corrections are welcome through the contact page.