My father went into a nursing home in January. He was previously on medical assistance because of his low income but once he was approved for long term care, we were told by the county that his house needed to be sold because all of his SS income would be going to the nursing home. Since he still had a mortgage, we had to sell his house before it went into foreclosure. I did pay a couple of months of his mortgage which I feel I will have no problem reimbursing myself from the proceeds of the sale. However, I wonder about the 100+ hours of work I missed and multiple 400 mile round trips I had to travel to go down and clean out his house before we could sell it. Also my mom (divorced, so had no obligation) who was helping me, had to board her dog for these trips which added up to over $1k. What things can I get reimbursed for without the county making a big deal of where the proceeds went? He's only got about $6k more than the allowed $3k.
the state (via Medicaid) will know to the penny what the house sold for and what the payoffs were (mortgage settlement) and what the net left after payoffs was to him as state databases are synched & all will surface. Net from the sale is totally his money; it’s his income for the month paid and then rolls over to be considered an asset for him. For most states, their LTC Medicaid program has the maximum for assets at 2k, and he could well be ineligible for LTC Medicaid until he spends down to the 2k limit. Your paying yourself for costs paid for mortgage, clean up, whatever can be viewed by Medicaid as “gifting” of assets of dad to you. Gifting not allowed by Medicaid.
Plus you run into the grey area of a DPOA paying themselves for services which can be viewed as “self-dealing” and that is a huge no-no for a dpoa to do.
in my experience you’d need to have had an agreement or memo of understanding done & signed off by him & notarized in advance of your paying for items that clearly details the terms of reimbursement for it to fly for Medicaid; or the costs - like for cleaning - are paid to a legit business. Or you placed / recorded at the courthouse a valid lien (like a workman’s lien) on the property ahead of Sale so the lien had to be paid to be released so sale could go thru.
Please please before you pay yourself any $$, contact his Medicaid caseworker to discuss in detail & with documentation (like the monthly mortgage statement & your cancelled check to them) to fax over, so that you can use to show why you can be paid the $ from his assets.
Medicaid really tends to assume that family, his ex, neighbors do for the elder out of a sense of familial duty and done for free.
As far as I’m aware, most states cannot required that the elder sells their home. They cannot mandate it, instead it’s heavily implied by admissions at the NH or the caseworker that it needs to be done as all his income must go to the NH under Medicaid required copay or SOC (share of cost), so keeping the home is not possible for the elder. But if family want to front property costs, it can continue to be owned by the elder if family have the purse or wallet to pay. Imo this can work for a fully paid home with limited & tight manageable costs if it makes sense for whatever reasons for family or heirs to do. Having one with a mortgage and the insurances required by mortgage co. totally is a deal breaker for keeping the place.
The other thing is that if you have POA then no you couldn't just walk away - it's a legal responsibility to manage your father's finances and assets in his best interests. And if the county is telling you = him that the house has to be sold, then you = he must comply. You are "being" your father, and what they can compel him to do you have to do for him, or at least get done for him.
Your mother is a bit trickier. Travel expenses for which she can show receipts they'll probably accept, but there's not a hope when it comes to the kennel fees. Presumably she did this for auld lang syne and to be supportive to you, so I hope appreciation will matter more to her.
I get that the past due medical bill and month behind at the nursing home should come out of his money, but the rest? I really don’t see it.
Shouldn’t dad’s money go to his care?
The irony is, if you and your mother had just said "feel free" to the county when they said your father's house would have to be sold, your father would be no worse off and you and she wouldn't be so badly out of pocket.
Did you yourself have any obligation to see to this? Were you responsible through power of attorney or something?
My brother just passed away on 6/8. He was in NJ, I live on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay.
So far we have spent over $1500 for hotel rooms, renting a truck, gas & meals, etc. Lots of time on the phone And...we are fixing to drive up there today to finish this by 6/30. We had to stay in a hotel as my brother has passed in his apartment & I couldn’t work in there more than 6 hours.
Thus I totally understand your concern as it’s a huge chunk of change to put out. Plus my job did give me a mini leave but some of those days are without pay.
I personally feel your father’s estate should reimburse you but due to Medicaid laws I am not sure he can spend that $6 on you. Others with more knowledge about this will reply.
I am not expecting to be reimbursed. Sad but true. He had money in his checking acct that is enough to pay for his cremation whenever I am able to convince his bank to release those funds to me.
You may just just have to write off the $ you may have lost re wages, travel. I certainly hope you find a way to get reimbursed because I too am in the middle of this & it is costly.