How to determine amount to compensate family caregiver?

My sister lived with and took care of our mother for about a year before we moved our mother to assisted living. My sister asked for nothing. The rest of us kids got together and had enough money in my mother's estate to buy my sister a new Honda Civic to replace the 10 year old car she was driving. We felt she had earned every penny and my sister was thrilled.

Don't get cheap on a family member as a care giver & home health. That only backfires and there's bitterness, fractures & hurt in the end. Think a 24/7 home health & care giver as $ 20/hour, 24/7 is $ 480/day, $ 3,360/week, $ 174,720/year. If you want to deduct rent & shared bills, go ahead. But that's what it costs to pay someone else to do far less. See a care giver/home health isn't going to be the property maintenance & manager, take the patient to doctor appointments, take care of a pet, grocery shop & prepare meals around the clock. And that money comes from the estate somehow, some way. You can employ family or you can pay a lousy unaffordable healthcare system to do the bare minimum.

I gave up a successful career to come home to take care of mom six years ago.

I make up her meds and make sure she takes them, do housework, go to doctors appointments with her (because she lies like a rug and tells them what she wants them to hear not what they need to hear). Cut the grass, take care of the garden, shovel the driveway in the winter, take out the garbage, make sure she does her exercises.

I did this for two years with no pay until someone told me I should be getting 1,500 a month. Whenever I mention this she tells me I should, in effect, be kissing her @ss because she puts a roof over my head, food in my belly and clothes on my back (which she gets for free at the church clothes give away).

Meanwhile she gives money every month to her ufpos (useless, freeloading pieces of sh%t ) elder son and granddaughter living in another city who have not come down to help me in the time I have been here.

Her doctor has told her that if I leave, she will be put in a seniors home. She insists she can live alone but she knows better.

One thing to note is that if you are a live in caregiver you must put it in writing when you leave and have the doctor sign a document that they have received said notice.
Otherwise, you could be charged with reckless abandonment, senior abuse and another charge that I cannot remember. That happened to someone here whose mother threw him out then cried to the police that he abandoned her. He had a tough time clearing himself.

Believe me these folks know how to be drama queens and manipulative.

I live in Ontario Canada. If anybody knows what rights live in caregivers have and web sites please help me out with their web site.

As for this situation, if he is doing the same amount of work he should be compensated.

Another thing to note is that being a caregiver is the most stressful thing you can do. Anybody want to challenge me on that I dare you to take of an aged parent for a year and see what it takes out of you.

I would say we are the silent suffers in society.

If your brother starts getting compensation, it seems to me you should also.

Having been caregiver for my wife for 12 years, and despite being with her every day to my extreme satisfaction due to how happy it made her, I nevertheless was more than exhausted much of the time. I urge you to realize that "hands-on" caregiving over time takes a lot of one's life away..Be generous.

Grace + peace,

Bob

I absolutely agree with CWillie. Negotiate this with a lawyer. Apparently your parents can afford this care, and the investment in an elder law attorney to write a good contract with duties and such would work really well in this instance. And would be paid for out of your Mom's assets. That helps take the pressure and burden off you.

Are you saying you plan to continue the rotation of duties with siblings, but this one sibling wants payment? Or does he plan to move in permanently and get paid for being full time caregiver?

If he plans to continue rotation, but with payment, there's going to be issues later on that you would never think would happen in your family. To avoid the nastiness that will arise when the estate has to be settled - he will have been draining the finances and will still get his share of the leftovers. The rest of you get leftovers and that's it - talk to an elder attorney and set up the same payment arrangement for all siblings Everyone gets paid the same and everyone will get the same split when estate is settled.

Of course, this arrangement will spend her money up faster so you have to consider what will be done when/if her cash money is all gone and she still needs care. Will everyone go back to free rotation work? Will mom go to a facility?

The elder attorney can do a legal contract and help you with paperwork to report these earnings to IRS because everyone will need to report the earnings to prevent problems for mom later on if she needs a Medicaid bed (if she ran out of cash money). Otherwise, it could be viewed as gifting to a child and all of you would have to figure out how to pay for a facility during her penalty period that Medicaid does not pay anything.

There always has to be that ONE person who figures out how to make a buck off mama, isn't there. At least your rotation deal worked out for a while. Many of us on this site have plenty of siblings and they don't even do that much. Just remember that hired caregivers (not w/an agency) are going to make about $15 an hour (maybe more/less in your area) and brother might be wanting 24/7 pay. If he moves in and saves on his own rent or mortgage/utils, those things need to be considered as part of his payment, in my opinion, all of the bills for the house (cable,phone,utils, etc)

Have you considered selling the house and putting your mom in assisted living? My family is in the process of putting my mom in assisted living that is in our same town.
It might be a better long term solution

I think that now is the time to work with an elder law attorney, they should be able to give you an idea of fair compensation according to your circumstances and set up a caregiving contract that will ensure everything is acceptable should medicaid be needed in the future.

Sarah, there are a number of IRS bulletins that address family caregivers.

https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/family-caregivers-and-self-employment-tax

Some elderly have lots of cash and do not need to think about future need for Medicaid, then fine, they will never have to provide Medicaid five years of financial account information. If there are gifts detected then the Medicaid eligibility is denied until those sums are repaid or a penalty period is up.

What is the gift amount now? $15,000.00? The care that bro will be providing is certainly more than that! The gift amount has absolutely nothing to do with Medicaid qualification. In fact, in the IRS bulletin about gifting, tax free, there should be mention about the impact on Medicaid qualification if gifting is done. This catches many families off guard.

When Medicaid denies a claim due to gifting some other option is needed for the elder until the amount gifted is worked off or paid out of someone's pocket based on your states cost of nursing homes. There needs to be a care agreement in place and medically necessary care provided and all taxes and other deductions withheld for Medicaid to grant coverage when money has been doled out, even if it is for legitimate care.

https://www.elderlawanswers.com/how-gifts-can-affect-medicaid-eligibility-10006

https://www.elderlawanswers.com/medicaids-asset-transfer-rules-12015