I had a hard time with this initially. I moved to another state just before my mom moved into AL. My younger sis, the 'boots on the ground' (who's still working full time), had had all of mom's mail forwarded to her own address, as she was writing the checks and paying mom's bills. We were readying her house to be rented to help defray expense of AL. I assumed I'd send cards to the AL address, and was confounded that that isn't an option with the facility: they don't have a system for delivering mail to individual residents; I felt like I'd been cut off from my mom and that she was being kept away from me, because she couldn't get mail, in any form or by any method.. So, everything from me now goes to my sister, and when she visits 1-2 x a week, she takes them.
One more bit of reality and frustration. [Rant: for $5,000 a month, the facility doesn't/can't/won't put an envelope into my mom's little 'mailbox' outside her front door?]
If your parent is on LTC Medicaid and they are continuing to own their home (which by & large is allowed to be kept as an exempt asset for their lifetime), be mindful on what you do regarding their address. Should this be your situation, they kinda need to keep some degree of valid presence at the old, property address to continue to have its homestead exemption to continue and to have a “right of return” document done. So like they keep up with having the house as the address on their permanent State issued ID and continue to have other items sent there in their name.
Should the homestead exemption get removed, the taxes will increase exponentially as it will not longer be their primary residence. Their homeowners insurance too will cancel out and that means you will have to get a vacant dwelling policy. Which are quite pricey and basically are just a fire policy.
You as their POA can get correspondence from LTC Medicaid sent to you at your own address as well as all that mail from CMS Medicare or whatever health insurance your elder is placed on. Or better yet get it all to go online.
This happened to me. I had the house changed to the family trust and I changed moms address to mine when she went into the NH. We lost the homestead exemption and taxes went way up as well as the insurance policy cancelled and I had to purchase another one. But, with our situation, it was the only lawful thing to do. Hoping to get the home sold by spring. Fingers crossed.
TheSharkAbides: The mailing address should be that of the agent's in Power of Attorney. Then the agent can bring only greeting cards received to the patient.
When my mother was in a nursing home, all bank and medical mail, or other important documents were sent to me. When I turned over POA to my brother, mail was sent to him. Only the greeting cards and Mom's personal mail was send directly to her unit number of the NH.
My mother has been in ALF for the past four years and my address is her official mailing address. I am her POA and I don’t use the facility address for anything. I take her magazines and cards; things she’ll enjoy. Easy for me and keeps her happy.
Now that my mom is in a 24 hr residential care home, all of her mail comes to me. Her friends and family have her physical address for sending greeting cards. But the important mail comes to my home. The only exception is Amazon products she needs like toiletries, which are delivered to the care home. We have not had problems with those deliveries.
My mom has been in a long term care facility for almost two years. All of her mail comes to my house. Social security notices, Medicaid, Medicare, Job & Family services notices etc.
I was asked by the NH to open her mail just in case there was something from Medicaid. I allowed that. Mom still had her home about 5 min from my home. I still had her other mail going there. I would take cards to her.
My hubs is PoA for his Mom, in a LTC facility close to our home. He has all her mail go to our house and then delivers anything fun to her himself. I occassionally find a random letter from Medicaid still winds up in her room at the facility, unopened, so we prefer to have it all come to us. Family has her facility address if they want to send her cards and such (but not packages).
I have my aunts personal mail like cards go to the NH. Any medical, insurance, bank, taxes etc go to her home address. If it weren’t easy to pick up there or if she doesn’t have a home address I would change it to your home address. You may have to have POA to get the bank etc to change her address.
One more bit of reality and frustration. [Rant: for $5,000 a month, the facility doesn't/can't/won't put an envelope into my mom's little 'mailbox' outside her front door?]
Should the homestead exemption get removed, the taxes will increase exponentially as it will not longer be their primary residence. Their homeowners insurance too will cancel out and that means you will have to get a vacant dwelling policy. Which are quite pricey and basically are just a fire policy.
You as their POA can get correspondence from LTC Medicaid sent to you at your own address as well as all that mail from CMS Medicare or whatever health insurance your elder is placed on. Or better yet get it all to go online.
My mother's mailing address was my house, and I never even changed her home address for her taxes from her old house.