Your state's pack. New issues arrive periodically on Mondays. Bookmark it. I built this for the Missouri T&E solo who knows the Probate Code cold but still loses an afternoon a week tracking the moving MO HealthNet pieces.
For licensed attorneys. This pack is general legal information and professional commentary for practicing attorneys — it is not legal advice, does not apply to any specific matter, and creates no attorney-client relationship. Verify every authority against the cited primary source before relying on it with a client. Published by Mike Moss, a Utah-admitted attorney, as an AI-enablement information product; it is not an offer of legal services and is not a representation that the author is admitted to practice in your jurisdiction.
Three developments I think actually matter to a Missouri T&E solo. Each has a read that lands on your practice specifically — and each comes with a reachable citation so you can verify it yourself before you use it with a client.
Under RSMo § 473.398, MO HealthNet is recovered as a probate claim with class-6 priority per RSMo § 473.397; the personal representative must obtain a release from the MO HealthNet Division before closing a probate estate. Note: under RSMo § 461.300, MO HealthNet may also reach non-probate transfers (including beneficiary-deed property) within one year of death, so 'probate-only' is incomplete for MO.
Recovery is tied to probate, so the beneficiary deed and funded trust are the planning levers — keep the home out of probate and you keep it out of the class-6 queue, subject to look-back rules.
RSMo §§ 473.397 (class-6 priority), 473.398 (recovery), 461.300 (non-probate reach) · revisor.mo.gov
Missouri's beneficiary deed (RSMo § 461.025) lets an owner name a grantee who takes title at death without probate; it needs no consideration or delivery and can even transfer to a trust.
Because Missouri recovery is probate-only, the beneficiary deed pulls the home out of the recoverable estate. Missouri was the first state to enact this (1989) — use it deliberately alongside the look-back analysis.
RSMo § 461.025 · revisor.mo.gov
Maximum CSRA is $162,660 (minimum $32,532); Missouri applies the standard $752,000 home-equity limit (not the higher tier).
Two places this lands: community-spouse protection math and high-value-home clients. Flag the 2028 H.R. 1 flat $1,000,000 home-equity cap now.
42 U.S.C. § 1396p · CMS 2026 Standards (medicaid.gov)
Decisions from the courts that bind a Missouri practitioner — the Supreme Court of Missouri and the Court of Appeals (Eastern, Western, and Southern Districts), the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Missouri, and the Eighth Circuit — read for what actually changes how you draft, advise, and plan. Trusts and estates broadly, not Medicaid alone: wills and capacity, undue influence, fiduciary duty, trust construction, and estate recovery.
The lane reads each new opinion from this state’s appellate courts and the federal courts that cover it, and reads-and-discards matters that are not trusts-and-estates (criminal, domestic-relations, and commercial disputes — including cases where a trust or estate appears only as a party’s capacity, not as a T&E holding). For this period, no material trusts-and-estates or estate-recovery ruling surfaced.
Nothing to re-paper from the bench this period; plan and draft against the controlling statutes and prior authority unchanged.
This week in Missouri for the T&E solo with MO HealthNet-planning clients: what The Missouri Bar, the Legislature, and the DSS / MO HealthNet manuals put in front of you.
The Missouri Bar CLE calendar, the Probate & Trust Committee, and the DSS manuals all publish on different schedules. This is that sift, already done, with the link on each item.