5 Ways to Find Cash for Caregivers

The recession wiped out plenty of well-paying jobs, and it's created lots of backbreaking unpaid ones.

More than 20 million Americans provide care to a parent who needs help but is not in a nursing home, according to a 2009 report by the National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP.

Not only are there burgeoning numbers of people donating time to care, but fewer families are also paying for outside aid, with 35 percent paying for outside help in 2009 compared to 41 percent in 2004. The report says that the tightened family purse strings after the economic crisis account for more reliance on unpaid help.

Indeed, many people don't believe services rendered to family members by relatives should be paid, says Chris Cooper, a financial planner and blogger on eCareDiary.com, a website that offers advice to caregivers. Unless there's been a family business, compensation isn't a commonplace conversation among family members, he says.

But cash may be available to caregivers in these situations:

* When the person requiring care is poor, government assistance may be available to pay a family or nonfamily caregiver.

* When a parent has resources, families must examine whether and how to pay a family member for caregiver services.

These questions should help to find out how and where to look for caregiver compensation.

Consider this typical situation: An adult daughter attends to her mother about three hours per day, helping her dress, cook and eat, while monitoring her medications. "Other siblings may not live nearby and they may think they are helping by just calling their mom, without any real idea of what their sister is doing," says Richard Kaplan, a University of Illinois law professor who specializes in elder issues.

If donating her time is a hardship -- perhaps because she's cut back on her salaried job -- the first step toward getting compensated is to let other family members know exactly what services are being performed, Kaplan says. A parent may qualify for government assistance to pay for care. To be sure, the caregiver must outline what services are rendered to prove the assistance qualifies for payment.

If a parent qualifies for Medicaid, he or she may be able to qualify for a growing number of programs, says Kevin Mahoney, director of the Center for the Study of Home and Community Life at Boston College. State rules differ, but you must be low-income and have assets outside of a home worth only about $2,000.

Also, veterans or their surviving spouses may qualify for similar assistance through the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The Cash & Counseling program -- a private-public partnership -- has been spreading, as 15 states have joined. The program provides Medicaid-eligible elderly with an allowance that can be used for various services, including paying family members for care, Mahoney says.

The person receiving care plans a budget for the allowance, and the program oversees the care and pays the caregiver, Mahoney says.

Some states offer the service only in certain areas. Check the map at cashandcounseling.org (the site is moving to ParticipantDirection.org). Since many of the states that recently have started a program are not yet listed on the Web, Mahoney suggests calling a local Area Agency on Aging office and ask what consumer-directed home and community-based services are available, particularly programs that allow for the hiring of family caregivers.

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