How Do You Pay for Home Care?
If you’ve decided on using home care for your loved one, there are some questions you might have if this is your first experience with it. One of those questions might be how to pay for such a service. The method of payment often depends on the situation you’re facing. For the most part, Medicare, Medicaid and many other employer-sponsored HMO and PPO plans only pay you back for intermittent Home Care visits from a nurse for a temporary time period; they don’t usually cover visits needed regularly or more consistently. And even when it is intermittent, they will usually only pay for it when your loved one has a specific qualifying medical diagnosis.
For the most part, these types of policies aren’t meant to pay for ongoing, hourly care services that fall under the classification of “Long-term Care.”
Worry not, however, as you do have a lot of options within reach to pay for the ongoing care services that you or your loved one need.
Some examples for financing long-term care are:
- Long-term care insurance
- Reverse mortgages
- Employee-sponsored Health Savings Account (HSA) or Flexible Spending Account (FSA)
- Employee-sponsored caregiving stipends, like “Back-up Care” programs for employees who are adult caregivers and travel for work
- Family trust funds
- Workers’ compensation insurance
- Catastrophic auto insurance
- State-subsidized home-and community-based services, which are often called “Medical Waiver” programs. (Please note that age and income qualifications do apply here.)
As you can see, you aren’t completely devoid of options when it comes to deciding how you want to pay for your home care needs. If you still have concerns or questions, it might be beneficial for you to seek counsel with a financial professional to figure out a way that you will be able to pay.
