What are some options when Mom starts to run out of money and has 24/7 care in-home?

The Aid and Attendance benefit is available to veterans who served at least one day during wartime and their wives or widows. The benefit for a widow is about $1100 per month and is paid when the widow's assets fall below $80,000 according to the veterans' service officer who I spoke to last year. Contact your county veterans' service office for application information.

The vet can get about $1800 per month as far as I know. There are specialists who will, at no cost to you, help you with this. One of my clients had just such a consultant help out with her dad's assets and how to place it in order to get the payment. In order to get this money, you must basically be broke. Her consultant is putting everything into a family trust with my client as the beneficiary. I don't believe the VA has the 5 year look back the way Medicaid does, but I'm not a specialist on this. The VA allows the vet to own their own home and does not count this as an asset.

Check out the pooled income trust for Medicaid spend-down. Not sure if this is just NY

to get in home care for a purple heart veteran does the VA help out without one having to spend down all their savings?

BTW some counties will offer respite care for the family for a limited number of hours per week. You might check this out too.

The widow of any veteran, whether he died during service or later is eligible for the pension, as long as she/he has not remarried. I don't know if the benefits survive if the person has remarried and divorced or widowed the second time. My mother draws about $1100 per month which pays a "companion" for about 25 hours per week. We get doctors orders from time to time for skilled nursing, physical therapy and occupational therapy.These services are paid by medicare, not medicaid. Rather than let her go into a nursing home setting, we are choosing to keep my mother in our home. She is usually somewhat herself. Occasionally she has a bad spell with a fit of temper or paranoia. Her doctor says it is from TIAs (mini strokes). We do not have the challenges with her that many of you are dealing with. We are selling her home which is 3 hours from us to invest the money in a home near us that we can rent out for income to increase the hours that we have help. That should get us a full time person and a part time person. I don't know if this is an option for any of you or not. Right now it's working for us.

This is where we collectively fail to care for the elderly who need 24/7 home health aides. Normally, Medicaid (the medical care program for the poor) does not pay for home health aides but will pay nursing homes twice that cost to "care for the elderly". It was mentioned the elder has to completely impoverish themselves to "qualify" for the help they need. Of course, becoming impoverished has a mental effect on the elder too, many only live a year and a half in a nursing home. Most nursing homes have Medicaid patients but they want to have a person come in with $250,000. or more then the will spend down the elders life savings, then they may (if they want to) "help" process the elder's Medicaid application to pay for the on going stay in the nursing home.
Each nursing home wants to get the end of the person's savings first so it will be very difficult to find a decent nursing home if you attempt a placement in a nursing home for your mother after spending most of her money.

If your mother was in the military or in some cases was married to a man who died in the military, you may qualify for a monthly allowance which might help you keep her in her home with aides.

Otherwise Americans need to have a long term care policy which they paid for independently to get any money for home health aides to stay where the majority want to stay, in their own home. Oddly enough it is also cheaper to stay in your own home but we are set up as a nation to "funnel" the elderly into nursing homes.

This is very difficult if you love your mother and know she can be handled out home but is just running out of her life savings. Other nations do better, unfortunately only the wealthy can "afford" to stay in their homes.

Good luck especially in the Christmas season, it is a tough decision to make.
However, we seem powerless to change this funding arrangement so just try to get the best nursing home she qualifies for under Medicaid. Shop and investigate all places in person and unannounced if possible. Check with their online ratings if rated by your state and the federal government.

That's what Medicaid is for. Your mom may or may not be able to use Medicaid to pay for in-home care. In most states she won't, but some have programs like Money Follows the Person where you can do this.

Otherwise, look for a nursing home that accepts Medicaid. It's best if you can get her in one and pay the full price for a couple of months at least (again, depending on your state). But the main thing is that you need to start working on Medicaid for her now. It takes time to get on the program.

Good luck. Please keep in touch with us and let us know how you're doing.
Carol

There are 2 types of Medicaid. Medicaid in the community, which would pay someone to care for her in your home (about 35 hours a week). The other is medicaid in the nursing home. As mentioned above, at a facility that accepts it. As long as she qualifies for medicaid (less than $2000 in the bank). Life insurance may have to be cashed out and used to prepay funeral expenses.

You should certainly apply for medicaid and start to look for a facility that accepts it.