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70 year old mother needs home care and daughter, experienced in senior care is willing to provide care but needs some payment.

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Your mother has some type of income - she gets social security, perhaps gets a retirement as well; perhaps has savings too - mom can use those funds to pay you. Mom does a "personal services contract" with you based on what home health services costs in your area; she pays you with everything that goes with that, like taxes filed; you in turn have income, pay taxes on it & also build quarters on your future SS. You need an attorney to draw this up so that there will be no "gifting" issues should mom need to apply for Medicaid. At 70, that is pretty young to be needing care, I bet she will run out of funds before her 80's, so Medicaid will be applied for.

If you have a professional degree (CPA, RN, MPH, etc) and you perform the same duties you would in your regular job, you can charge your regular rate.

Now some states have paid home health family programs. These seem to be for 10-15 hours a week at miminum wage or maybe slightly above that. It is not going to be a full time living wage. Usually you have to take some basic caregiving course, perhaps a red cross life savings course as well. Based on what other have posted on this site maybe $ 9 hr /10 hrs week; under $400 mo. Hours will be under 20 hrs week so that it is not a part time job. If you are expecting the state to pay you whatever your old salary & benefits was, that just isn't going to happen.

The viewpoint of caregiving in the US is that it is done for free by the women-folk of the family as a sense of duty and familial responsibility. If your living at the home, it's viewed that you are getting a direct benefit of free room & board as well. Whether this is right or wrong, well that is a whole other issue.....But that is how the system is set up at this point.
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In California, we have IHSS (In Home Supportive Services); a state agency that pairs caregivers (such as myself) with needful clients. I have one client right now, my mom, and the state of California pays me for 200+ hours per month to take care of her. I did have a second client which was an additional 100 hours per month, but gave her up to concentrate more on my mom. If you are interested in seeing if your state has an IHSS or something similar, you can check the government pages of your phonebook. You can also call the IHSS in California and ask them if they know of a similar agency in your state. The number for the office in my area is 1-951-791-3250
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Note to igloo572:
The duty of the family is not a nationwide thing. It varies from state to state. I think in places like New Mexico you don't get paid. But there are states, such as California, that will pay caregivers to take care of someone, family or not.
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Greg - IHSS is wonderful & it would be great if all states had a program like that and systemized like Medi-Cal & the State of California does. But even with IHSS, it really probably isn't what your old salary & benefits were.

IHSS pays like $ 10.80 hr with a max of 66 hours at the very best if the client is evaluated to need 66 hrs of care by the state. $ 700 week & maybe $ 550 after taxes?25K a year? if you have your own other source of income that the IHSS supplements, then when your caregiving days end you will be ok financially for your own retirement. But what seems to be the story over & over on this site, is family leaves their job to caregive; moves in with mom/dad: spends down their own savings as their parents income is not enough to support the household & themselves; then after X # of years, mom needs a higher level of care& caregiver has total burnout; the caregiver now finds herself financially at risk, exhausted and with limited job / income prospects.

If they need to go onto Medicaid to pay for NH, then the caregiver has to deal with MERP. Yes they can get the caregiver exemption to MERP so they can inherit the home. But although that is great, it doesn't work IF they don't have the income & resources to be able to afford the home.

We all want to make sure our parents live a long healthy & hopefully happy life. But we shouldn't overlook our own future needs and it's likely costs. Often quitting our job & spending our own resources to take care of maw-maw does exactly that
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igloo572:
Actually, I have made due with IHSS for 10 years now. I get $11.50 an hour times just over 200 hours a month. Further, as of January 1, they will start paying time and a half for 40 of those monthly hours.
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