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And using her social security to pay bills? My Mother and i have been living together since her husband past away in 2000. She has been my dependent for several years. Sadley she took a fall November 2014 and suffered brain damage and now is in a nursing home.

Her social security income was enough to pay the mortage and condo fee. My pay was only enough to pay home bills such as cable,food, cell phs., Mom's doctor bills and meds, gas, etc, etc. I would collect all her med. bill and anything else i could use when doing our taxes. We would receive a nice return.

Soon i will have to pay the nursing home. The question! Would i be able to use my income to pay the nursing home and use her s.s. to pay for home bills in order to continue having my Mother as my dependent so we can continue receiving a nice return? In other words reverse in how the money is being used.

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I recommend seeking help with your tax return--perhaps from a nearby AARP Foundation Tax-Aide site. Whether or not your mother is your dependent depends upon whether or not you provide (from your income) over half of her total support. In other words, assuming all of her Social Security income is spent, are you spending more than that amount on her from your income.

The IRS has a useful step-by-step tool you might use, "Who can I claim as a dependent?", found at http://www.irs.gov/uac/Who-Can-I-Claim-as-a-Dependent%3F.
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It doesn't sound like your mom was your dependent before her accident. She was paying the larger share of the living expenses.

Private pay in a nursing home can be $6,000 a month or more. I don't understand how you'd manage that given that you said your income is not sufficient to cover the current mortgage and condo fee?

I'm guessing then that you're talking about Medicaid coverage for your mom's continued stay in the nursing home. If that's the case, her house can be kept out of the spend down for Medicaid, but you'd still be left with managing it.

You definitely need to sit down with an elder law attorney to talk about your options. You should also give the social worker at the nursing home a heads-up about your mom's financial situation. If she was admitted in November, she's nearing the expiration of her stay on Medicare.
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It might depend on which state your Mom is living in. Here, the nursing home facilities take over all monthly incomes of the elderly person being admitted and often times, bank accounts as well. You might want to inquire now how much the NH is going to charge you for her to be admitted permanently. In this area, the charges are around $8,000.00 a month so prepare yourself in advance of Medicare ending. If you choose to bring her back home, don't allow the NH to run out all of her medicare paid days for the year, just in case she is hospitalized again and needs to go back to rehab. If this happens medicare will decline further payments and she will not be covered again until 2016.
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