Caring for Mom or Dad at home - Who Pays?

Who pays for mom or dad’s home care when they get old?

I’ll never forget the day my mom told me that she thought the government was going to pay for her medical needs when she got old. Now she can barely afford to go to the doctor! As a case manager at a big city hospital I see many patients come through every day with the same expectations and problems as my mother. The reality is the government had no idea you were going to live so long when they started Medicare and they have no way to provide you with the home care you need.

With all of the recent advances in medicine we can save so many more lives, but these people may be paying for it the rest of their lives if they don’t have good insurance. The government will help with some of your medical bills, but they have a limit. Medicare A is supplied at no cost to you but to qualify you must have worked and paid taxes for at least 40 quarters (equal to 10 years). Then the problem you run into with Medicare A is that not everything is covered and unless you read the fine print you may end up paying part of your bill.

Medicare has designed some new plans in the last few years to help with those costs such as SCAN and PACE. A good idea is to go to the Medicare.gov web site and get the handbook titled “Health Care Coverage Directory for People with Medicare.” Medicare also has supplemental plans that you can pay for such as Part B which covers things like doctor’s visits and your 20% co-pay for skilled nursing facilities. Part D consists of many different plans for prescription drugs – you should check the formularies to see if the medications that you are using are covered.

The biggest issue with Medicare is that is doesn’t pay for long-term care either at home or in a nursing facility. Unless you still need nurses or other forms of skilled therapy Medicare won’t pay and even if they do it is only for a limited time. And what happens when your loved one is one of those elderly people who isn’t sick but just cannot remain in their home safely? The only insurance that covers both medical and non-medical home care are long-term care insurance plans, these can be purchased through private insurance companies.

You can get more information on long-term care insurance from the http://medicare.com web site publication “Choosing Long-term Care: A guide for People with Medicare,” or “A shopper’s Guide to Long-Term Care Insurance” from the National Assoc of Insurance Commissioners.