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## § 37.2-717 – Department to investigate financial ability to pay expenses; assessments and contracts by Department

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A. The Department shall investigate and determine which individuals receiving services or parents, guardians, conservators, trustees, or other persons legally responsible for individuals receiving services are financially able to pay the expenses of the care, treatment or training, and maintenance, and the Department shall notify these individuals or their parents, guardians, conservators, trustees, or other legally responsible persons of the expenses of care, treatment or training, and maintenance and, in general, of the provisions of this article.

B. The Department may assess or contract with any individual receiving services or the parent, guardian, conservator, trustee, or other person liable for his support and maintenance to recover care, treatment or training, and maintenance expenses. In arriving at the amount to be paid, the Department shall have due regard for the financial condition and estate of the individual, his present and future needs, and the present and future needs of his lawful dependents. Whenever it is deemed necessary to protect him or his dependents, the Department may assess or agree to accept a monthly sum for the individual’s care, treatment or training, and maintenance that is less than the actual per diem cost, provided that the estate of the individual other than income shall not be depleted below the sum of $500. Nothing contained in this title shall be construed as making any such contract permanently binding upon the Department or prohibiting it from periodically reevaluating the actual per diem cost of care, treatment or training, and maintenance and the financial condition and estate of any individual receiving services, his present and future needs, and the present and future needs of his lawful dependents and entering into a new agreement with the individual or the parent, guardian, conservator, trustee, or other person liable for his support and maintenance, increasing or decreasing the sum to be paid for the individual’s care, treatment or training, and maintenance.

C. All contracts made by and between the Department and any person acting in a fiduciary capacity for any individual receiving services adjudicated to be incapacitated under the provisions of Article 1 (§ 64.2-2000 et seq.) of Chapter 20 of Title 64.2 and all assessments made by the Department upon that individual or his fiduciaries, providing for payment of the expenses of such individual in any state facility, shall be subject to the approval of any circuit court having jurisdiction over the incapacitated individual’s estate or for the county or city in which he resides or from which he was admitted to the state facility.