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Miller Trust Guide
WY · Guide

How to Set Up an Income Trust in Wyoming: Step by Step

Wyoming does not publish a fill-in Qualified Income Trust form. To meet its requirements, an attorney (or, where permitted, you) drafts the trust to satisfy WDH's own published policy, names a trustee, opens a dedicated trust bank account, and funds it with the applicant's income in the same calendar month you want coverage to begin. The trust diverts income above Wyoming's $2,982/month long-term-care Medicaid cap (effective January 2026 (income standard, resource limits, and personal needs allowance)) so the applicant qualifies. For complex estates, consult a Wyoming-licensed elder-law attorney. This guide is informational only and is not legal advice — we explain what WDH's policy requires; we do not draft the trust or provide sample trust language.

What usually happens

Wyoming doesn't publish a fill-in form, so the trust has to be drafted to WDH's requirements, and an elder-law attorney quotes $1,000–$2,500 to research and draft it. Once it's signed, you take it to the bank, where the branch has never opened one of these and says no.

Meanwhile the month is running out. In Wyoming, coverage can't start before the month the trust is funded, so a month that slips is another month of private-pay nursing care at $9,916–$10,327.

This applies when the person who needs care has gross monthly income over Wyoming's income cap of $2,982, whether you're their child, their spouse, or a professional helping them.

Free: the questions to ask a Wyoming bank before your first visit

7 questions for a five-minute phone call, so you find out whether a branch knows how to open this account before you make the drive. Emailed now, then 4 short follow-ups over the next 10 days — then we stop.

Email only — we never ask for income, age, or family details, and never sell your address.

Wyoming does not publish a fill-in Miller Trust form, so the trust is drafted — by an attorney, or by you where permitted — to meet Wyoming Department of Health (WDH), Division of Healthcare Financing (DHCF) -- determines Medicaid long-term-care financial eligibility, including Income Trust review, through county Department of Family Services (DFS) offices and the Wyoming Eligibility System (WES) online portal.'s own published requirements. Here is the full sequence, with the WDH fact behind each step.

  1. Confirm the applicant's income is over the Wyoming cap

    A Qualified Income Trust only helps when monthly countable income exceeds Wyoming's long-term-care Medicaid limit — $2,982/month single (effective January 2026 (income standard, resource limits, and personal needs allowance)). If income is under the cap, a trust usually is not needed.

  2. Get the required-provisions checklist

    Wyoming does not publish a fill-in QIT form. WDH's own published policy (Wyoming Medicaid Rules Chapter 18, Section 8(c)(iii) "Income Trust" (048.0037.18 Wyo. Code R. § 18-8(c)(iii))) instead lists exactly what a compliant trust must contain — the checklist tells you what to bring to an attorney or verify in a draft.

  3. Have the trust drafted

    No Wyoming case, statute, or bar ethics opinion specifically addresses Medicaid-planning kits or trust-drafting kits. The Wyoming Supreme Court's own UPL enforcement actions target personalized drafting for a specific person, or substantive modification of a standard form -- not generic form-explainer publishing. That said, because WDH's own approval process compares a submitted trust against an internal model that isn't published for public use, drafting a Wyoming Income Trust from the requirements below means producing an original legal document from scratch -- a materially different task than filling in an existing state form. For most families that argues for an attorney: self-drafting carries real risk of missing a required clause -- including Wyoming's named-income-source funding rule and its WDH payback language -- than filling in an existing form would. Budget for an attorney; this guide is what keeps that engagement efficient.

  4. Name a trustee

    Wyoming Medicaid Rules Chapter 18 (read in full) contains no language specifying who may or may not serve as trustee of an Income Trust, and no explicit prohibition on the beneficiary serving as their own trustee -- a confirmed silence in the rule text, not an oversight in this guide's research.

  5. Open the dedicated trust bank account

    Open a dedicated bank account titled to the trust once it is signed. Branches commonly hesitate to open this account type, so know what to say before you go.

  6. Fund the trust in the same calendar month

    Deposit enough of the applicant's income into the trust account to bring remaining countable income below $2,982 — in the same calendar month you want coverage to start. WDH does not back-date, so the month you fund is the earliest month eligibility can begin.

  7. Distribute monthly and keep records

    Each month the trustee pays out only the allowed items and keeps records. Staying inside WDH's rules each month is what keeps benefits from being pulled.

The two steps families get stuck on are opening the bank account in Wyoming and funding the trust before the calendar month closes — see how long setting up a Wyoming Miller Trust takes for the timing rules.

What your Wyoming trust must contain

Wyoming does not publish a fill-in Qualified Income Trust form. WDH does not publish a public fill-in Income Trust form. Its own eligibility manual describes an internal "model Miller Trust form" that caseworkers compare a submitted trust against and distribute "upon request" during casework -- but the only locatable copy exists off of any .gov domain, not published as a downloadable form for the public. Wyoming's governing regulation, Chapter 18 §18-8(c)(iii), instead lists in detail what a compliant trust must contain -- irrevocability, named-income-source funding, a WDH payback clause, and restricted, itemized distributions -- and that regulation, read alongside WDH's own manual sections on distributions and worker approval procedure, is what the checklist below is built from.

The step that isn't really paperwork

Opening the bank account is where families actually lose time — most branches have never opened this kind of trust account before. Free one-pager: the questions to ask before you drive to a branch, emailed now. Then 4 more short emails over the next 10 days — then we stop. No ongoing newsletter.

Email only — we never ask for income, age, or family details, and never sell your address.

Common questions

What do you need before you start setting up a Wyoming Miller Trust?
Proof of the applicant's gross monthly income (a Social Security award letter, pension statements), and confirmation that income is actually over Wyoming's $2,982/month cap — a Miller Trust only matters if both are true. Knowing who will serve as trustee ahead of time also speeds up the rest of the process. States differ on whether the applicant can serve as their own trustee, so check what WDH says before you choose.
Is the Wyoming Miller Trust process the same as in other states?
The shape is similar everywhere — get the trust document, name a trustee, open a dedicated bank account, fund it, and submit it to Medicaid — but the specifics underneath vary by state: the exact form or requirements, the income cap, whether an EIN is needed, and the agency's own submission process. This guide covers Wyoming's specifics.