A reader recently asked: “Can I get paid to take care of my mother who is elderly and needing full-time care? Up until recently, I had been working two full-time jobs but had to quit both jobs in order to care for my aging mother, who is disabled and unable to take care of herself since her release from the hospital. I am an only child, and not trying to make money off of my mother’s situation, but simply want to provide the care she needs while also taking care of my own responsibility to pay the bills and buy food. Do you or your readers know if I can get paid to provide care for my mother?”
Maybe. Some states in the U.S. provide programs that pay family members to take care of an elderly parent, but they are typically quite limited and not likely to offer very much money on a regular basis, at least not enough money as a realistic alternative to your full-time job earnings. In the U.K., there is a program called “Carer’s Allowance”, which is a benefit to help people take care of someone who is disabled. For more information on the carer’s allowance in the U.K., please see Directgov for more information on who can or cannot get carer’s allowance, as well as how much money is provided to the caregiver.
If you are one of 70 million people providing unpaid care giving for a family member, you know that the time and energy spent taking care of aging parents or other family members can become quite burdensome with few options available, leading some people to quit their jobs in order to provide needed care for an aging mother or father. Experts in in-home care understand that family members often make the best caregivers, assisting in very personal care such as bathing, dressing, cooking, cleaning, food preparation and other daily living activities, that elderly family members may not want or feel comfortable receiving from strangers, even if the care would be provided through a licensed home health care agency.
In some cases, if the parent, spouse, friend or other person being cared for is eligible for or on Medicaid, the Cash and Counseling program (available in some states) can pay you a sum of money if you have been designated as the personal home care aid to help pay for food, medical needs, transportation, bills, etc. How much money is paid depends on a Medicaid assessment of need as well as the current pay rate for in-home care aids in your state. Some states offer similar programs for low-income seniors, even if the senior doesn’t qualify for Medicaid (called Medi-Cal in California). If the person being cared for has long-term care insurance that includes in-home care coverage, the benefits can be used to pay you in some cases.
If the elderly mother or father has their own financial resources, it may be a good idea to draw up a short contract wherein you agree to work as a home health aide with an agreed upon salary, setting specific terms of your work duties and responsibilities, as well as when and how you will be paid. The Elder Care Agreement (Form 85) provides clear, easy-to-follow instructions in how to write a caregiver contract in the book 101 Law Forms for Personal Use
Once you have a written, signed and dated version of the contracted agreement, that both you and your parent are in agreement about, make several copies and give one copy to your parent and keep another copy for yourself. The other copies can be saved in a file, along with other important papers such as wills, insurance, financial documents, etc. Having a written contract can help reduce or eliminate stress and problems between caregiver and parent, as well as problems with siblings in situations where one family member is doing most (if not all) of the work. If your parent ever needs to go into a nursing home and isn’t already on Medicaid, the agreement will show that these payments to you were legitimate, and not a feeble attempt to “hide” money in order to qualify for Medicaid.
As a direct result of our country’s dependence on family members to provide care for loved ones at home, the U.S. federal government enacted the National Family Caregiver Support Program (FCSP) in 2000, developed by the Administration on Aging (AoA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The program calls for all states, in partnership with local area agencies on aging and community-service providers to offer five direct services that best meet the range of caregivers’ needs, including:
- Information to caregivers about available services;
- Assistance to caregivers in gaining access to supportive services;
- Individual counseling, organization of support groups, and caregiver training to assist caregivers in making decisions and solving problems relating to their roles;
- Respite care to enable caregivers to be temporarily relieved from their care giving responsibilities; and
- Supplemental services, on a limited basis, to complement the care provided by caregivers.
All states in the U.S. now provide some type of help for families under FCSP which focuses needed effort on family care giving relief, including counseling programs and support groups, training and respite care. To learn more about the specific help offered for family caregivers in your state including official contact information, email and website (if available), go to Family Caregiver Support State Contacts for more information on family caregiver services, or you can search for Home Health Care Agencies in your state, as there is currently over 8,846 Home Care Agencies on file at HomeCareFiles.org.
Check with your local Social Security Office, as they may be able to offer some help by directing you to the right agency for you, as well as information about Hospice Care, etc. To find the nearest Medicaid office or other in-home care program services available, visit the Eldercare Locator and inquire about direct payment programs for in-home care for family members.
If your state requires caregivers to be state-certified in-home care aides, you can learn the specific requirements for such certification by visiting the National Family Caregivers Association or the Family Caregiver Alliance for more information. Some adult schools or community colleges offer low-cost certification classes, so be sure to check out those options as well.
Depending on the situation, you may be able to claim your mother or father as a dependent on your taxes, claiming a portion of your parent’s medical and living expenses as a deduction, as well as costs of nursing home care. Some employers offer elder care assistance with their benefit plans, so if you must go back to work, talk to your employer to see if this is something they offer. If you go to benefitscheckup.org, you can check into any possible local or state grants or programs that may reimburse you for some care giving expenses.
Related Post:
How to Care For an Elderly Parent
Taking Care of Aging Parents as a Family
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8 responses so far ↓
1 Lil // Jun 16, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Not sure how “international” your readership is but perhaps a mention of the programs and financial assistance that are available in Australia through Centrelink which can provide both a Carer Allowance and a Carer Pension for those who are providing substantial care for friends or family (children or adults) who are disabled or frail aged.
Also considerable assistance may be available for home modifications, supply of equipment etc (including a considerable annual subsidy for continence management products) free or reasonable rental of mobility equipment through the public hospital system and subsidised other services such as audiology, optometry, podiatry etc and an annual “bonus” which was last $1000 and paid annually. (in addition to the $600 annual bonus paid to the aged).
Not all people in this caring situation are aware of their entitlements or the extent of the help, both financial and practical, that is available there and I am by no means an expert, so perhaps a mention that people who may happen to be carers in Australia, start enquiring to see just what is available to them in their situation and their financial circumstances.
No, it is not the equivalent of a CEO salary but it can make it “do able”.
The best place to start for information and details about their particular situation is Centrelink (the Govt department) and for other advice/assistance Carer’s Australia - who are also excellent about information re subsidised casual respite relief and emotional support generally
When I first started this I knew so little about how to access this help and information. It is not always widely known and although everyone’s situation is different I would certainly suggest that people start asking around - persistently! - to see just what help is there for them in their particular circumstances.
Sorry if I sound a busybody or interfering but it bothers me that people may be having to ‘re invent the wheel” simply because they are not aware of the possible avenues for assistance.
2 Lin (793 comments.) // Jun 16, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Lil, thank you for this information. I’m not that familiar with CentreLink, so I appreciate the heads up on them. Thank for you taking the time to provide this helpful information for anyone seeking information about the Carer Allowance, because anyone taking care of elderly parents (regardless of where they live) knows how difficult it can be financially and in every other way. Thanks again Lil!
3 Should You Quit Your Job to Care for Your Aging Parent? | Aging Parents Authority // Jun 18, 2008 at 6:48 am
[…] Read more -Can I get paid to care for a family member:Elderly Mother or Father? Also, this article gives valuable information about the National Family Caregver Support Program […]
4 Taking Care of Aging Parents as a Family | Telling It Like It Is // Jun 21, 2008 at 9:59 am
[…] Further Reading: Can I Get Paid to Care For a Family Member? […]
5 wilson (8 comments.) // Aug 31, 2008 at 4:06 am
Lin, if you have the choice here, would you want to be paid for taking care your own father or mother?
For me, I think that taking care the elders is our responsibility and I won’t care if I getting paid or not…
6 Lin (793 comments.) // Aug 31, 2008 at 7:13 am
Hi Wilson,
Taking care of our elderly parents is definitely our responsibility. The costs of such care can become quite expensive and burdensome for some families, especially those with only one or two grown children that are both working.
There is also the problem within many families with a few children to help with the care, where some grown children do not or will not and even Refuse to (for whatever reason) do the things that are needed for their own parents. Sad, but oh-so-true, if you catch my drift.
Elder care is something we ourselves were dealing with for the last several years, in caring for my FIL who passed away a few months ago. With both of us working, and the other sibling um…not too interested in helping much or at all, we ourselves were looking into the various programs that might help with some form of assistance to help OFF SET the mounting costs of elder care.
I was actually giving serious thought to quitting my job too, in order for there to be someone in the family that would be available 24 hours a day to provide my FIL the care he needed. He was living in an assisted-living apartment of his own but became so ill all of a sudden that he went into the hospital and the doctors informed us that he’d never be able to live on his own anymore, so we took care of informing the apartment landlord of his condition and emptied out his apartment, then went on a desperate search for information of how WE could provide him all the care he needed ourselves.
With the kind of care my FIL needed, and the kind of care many other elderly people need (costly medications, numerous doctor visits each week, physical therapy, oxygen tanks, and many other things), caring for elderly parents can be extremely……expensive.
That’s where these programs come in. They DO help families, although limited in scope, with the financial aspects of providing care for parents.
It’s not something that will replace the income from a full-time job, so that’s something people need to understand. These programs are there to HELP families with the needs, and they do help.
My FIL passed away right at the beginning of our search for this type information, so I felt it was important to provide this information for people going through much the same as we were. I would gladly give up my job and take care of my FIL if it came down to that, and the programs mentioned above would simply have helped us fulfill our responsibility.
7 wilson (8 comments.) // Sep 1, 2008 at 7:43 am
In this situation, Lin, I will agree that you should get paid for it, so that you can take care of the elders without worry about the daily expenses…
Sometimes, the life could be so tough and unexpected…NO matter what, you still need to be strong and move on with it.
8 Lin (793 comments.) // Sep 1, 2008 at 9:09 am
It’s also important to understand that the “pay” these programs provide is not much. It’s not at all like being paid a full-time wage or anything close to that. But some families do need any kind of help, in any amount possible. So I’m happy to provide this information for people doing their best to take care of mom or dad, grandpa or grandma.
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