Are you saying that the NH has kept your Mom in for 11 months without payment? Is the Sister the POA for your Mother. Is your mother diagnosed with dementia or is she mentally competent and paying her own bills? Who is paying her other bills, if any? How did you find this out? Have you gone to your Sister? What does she say? So many steps need to be taken here. Have you taken any of them. Unless your mother is independently extremely wealthy, she may be in danger of being accused of gifting Sister enormous sums of money over time, and thus ineligible for medicaid were she ever in need of it. The look back on exactly how Mother's money was spent is 5 years in most states. This is very worrisome.
So the money has been spent by sister and is not available to pay nursing home? Get all the details set down, you may have a gifting situation. You do not want to get Adult Protective Services involved as they can seek guardianship and recovery. Or Medicaid could clawback payments to the nursing home as being disqualified. If “a few payments” were made, sounds like sis knew money was owed and was helping herself when funds were not taken immediately going forward. Get some legal advice quick as this could get the state involved for a vulnerable elder.
Thanks all, my sister is used to mom helping her out and vise versa. we were mostly surprised the nursing home didn't take the money after the 90 days mom was there. Don't know what she was thinking....
Nursing homes don’t “take” money. Only if the POA (or your Mom) signed paperwork making the NH the “payee” when she was admitted, would a SS check automatically be sent to them. Short of that, the checks continue to be deposited into her bank account, the NH sends a bill, and it gets paid from the account. I don’t know what your sister was thinking... the NH was free? Anyway I don’t know if your sister can be charged for stealing the money, but I do think the NH can evict Mom unless the bill is paid.
If sister used Mom's SS she could be brought up on charges.
NHs should make it mandatory that they are made payee for a residents SS once its established the resident will reside there for the rest of their lives. The NH will need a POAs signature or Moms if she is competent enough to sign to have them made POA for SS and any pension.
This money is owed. Not sure how you can get to Moms acct to see what she has left if anything.
We DON'T want her in trouble. Mom's ss check came in every month but the NH wasn't getting paid. The ss check is deposited in the account she has with my mother. She sent the NH few payments. She owes the NH 11000. We got a copy from the nh. Mom is her own poa.
Sorry for assuming, most people who come here asking this question WANT the person to get arrested.
No your sister most likely wont get in trouble for not paying the nursing home. She’s a joint account holder. That doesn’t make her financially responsible for your mother OR for paying your mother’s bills. Did you sister spend all the money on herself or something? Or has the social security money accumulated month and month & it’s still there?
It sounds like a)moms money needs to STOP going in to the joint account and b)someone needs to be assigned POA for mom and take over paying her SS to the nursing home or C)the nursing home needs to become her SS rep payee and her check will go to them automatically every month.
Are you saying that the money to pay them is gone?
This is the problem with being joint account holders. This business of she is on the account is not true, you are a joint account holder or you are not on the account. Accounts that are jointly owned are just that, so prosecuting her if she stole moms social security can happen, but it gets complicated because she was part owner of the account, which entitles her to take the money.
It has taken the NH a year to say anything about nonpayment? I would think that it is some type of accounting error, them not screeching is most concerning. They are usually calling for payment if it reaches the 5 day late fee.
Do check out all the documents and accounting to ensure that you have all the correct information before calling in the law.
she can’t be arrested for failure to pay your moms bill. Not sure why you would want her thrown in jail over that to be honest. Just because her name is on the account, it doesn’t make her legally responsible to pay your moms bills. Is your mother’s financial POA?
When you say she made a few payments, can you clarify what the payments were for? Are you saying she made a few payments to nursing home?
Is the Sister the POA for your Mother. Is your mother diagnosed with dementia or is she mentally competent and paying her own bills? Who is paying her other bills, if any? How did you find this out? Have you gone to your Sister? What does she say? So many steps need to be taken here. Have you taken any of them. Unless your mother is independently extremely wealthy, she may be in danger of being accused of gifting Sister enormous sums of money over time, and thus ineligible for medicaid were she ever in need of it. The look back on exactly how Mother's money was spent is 5 years in most states.
This is very worrisome.
NHs should make it mandatory that they are made payee for a residents SS once its established the resident will reside there for the rest of their lives. The NH will need a POAs signature or Moms if she is competent enough to sign to have them made POA for SS and any pension.
This money is owed. Not sure how you can get to Moms acct to see what she has left if anything.
No your sister most likely wont get in trouble for not paying the nursing home. She’s a joint account holder. That doesn’t make her financially responsible for your mother OR for paying your mother’s bills. Did you sister spend all the money on herself or something? Or has the social security money accumulated month and month & it’s still there?
It sounds like a)moms money needs to STOP going in to the joint account and b)someone needs to be assigned POA for mom and take over paying her SS to the nursing home or C)the nursing home needs to become her SS rep payee and her check will go to them automatically every month.
This is the problem with being joint account holders. This business of she is on the account is not true, you are a joint account holder or you are not on the account. Accounts that are jointly owned are just that, so prosecuting her if she stole moms social security can happen, but it gets complicated because she was part owner of the account, which entitles her to take the money.
It has taken the NH a year to say anything about nonpayment? I would think that it is some type of accounting error, them not screeching is most concerning. They are usually calling for payment if it reaches the 5 day late fee.
Do check out all the documents and accounting to ensure that you have all the correct information before calling in the law.
When you say she made a few payments, can you clarify what the payments were for? Are you saying she made a few payments to nursing home?