For an individual with a community spouse, special provisions called Spousal Impoverishment provisions apply to individuals who became institutionalized after 1989. The purpose of this provision is to allow the community spouse to keep some of the institutionalized individual's resources as determined on a specific date (assessment date). Under spousal impoverishment provisions, an institutionalized individual may receive Long Term Care Medical Assistance if he or she agrees to bring his or her resources below the resource limit by transferring them to his or her spouse within a specified time known as the 'protected period'.