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How do I ask them? I want to approach family members to ask them to donate money to help out with my grandmas homecare, what should i say and do you think its poor taste to ask her kids, and grandkids that live out of state for money donations ?

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I'm unclear. Are you asking them to pay you for Grandma's care or are you trying to arrange for Grandma to have caregivers cone in? Of course, ANYONE who is caring for her has to get paid, whether it's you or someone else. Why doesn't she qualify for Medicaid ? Why are you in charge of this? Where are her children?
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Medicaid is MADE for people who've run out of money. Why doesn't she qualify? And how does it happen that the responsibility for gram's care fell on your shoulders? A little more information would be helpful to get at the root of the problem.

Why don't you want to ask her own CHILDREN to help?
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I'am trying to hire a home care aid for her, most of her kids are in poor health I'am just a grandaughter that has stepped in trying to help find assistance for her. Since other family don't want to take turns caring for her, I'am trying to hire a home health aid , not sure why medcaid didn't go thru, my aunt won't tell me.
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No offense, but Auntie won't tell you because there is either property or $$ squirreled away. That $$ should be used for your Grandmother's care.....OTHERWISE, she would qualify for Medicaid. Sounds like you need to host a good old fashioned family meeting. Is the Aunt POA? If she is...it IS HER job to figure this out. She should resign her POA and assign it to you if you are the "go to" caregiver.

Hang in there...you are doing a kind and wonderful thing because most grandchildren would never do what you are doing....my hat's off to you! But be persistant, be insistant with Auntie.....you are the one holding the bag....you have to know why no Medicaid.
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Does your Aunt have dementia or is she cognitively limited (i.e., "slow")?

If she's not, and if she's grandma's power of attorney, you are going to have to insist that she follow up with appealing the Medicaid denial. Is grandma still competent enough to assign a new POA? Perhaps you would be a better choice.
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Nan, Mincemeat is right, the kids already took her money, that's why Medicaid won't pay. Unfortunately Michigan does not have filial responsibility laws, so you cannot force them to pay for her care. Medicaid has already informed them of the amount they have to pay back. It could be a LOT. Vultures!!
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Mincemeat said that so much better! Yes, you should realize that Medicaid was denied because Grandma has money in the bank that Aunt is trying to preserve as her "inheritance ". That money needs to be used for Grandma's care.
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Just one more thing... don't let them convince you to quit your job and become granny's caregiver. They will try to tell you that they'll pay you after they inherit the money. Don't fall for this. It NEVER works out.
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I agree with mincemeat and pamstegma,her children that are in poor health and other grandkids have seen the stuggle I'am going thru, they offer sympathy but thats it, so while the well off grandkids sit in their fancy houses and drive fancy cars i thought i would ask them for money donations , as I'am considered low income .
Yes, Auntie is POA, and Grandma has Dementia.
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If Auntie wants to keep her POA, then she should come up with a way to pay YOU something for caregiving. You are probably of the age where your time should be used earning to educate yourself, buy a home, have a family. Do not pass up your prime earning years so that other fat cats can sit on their tukkus.!
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I bet Grandmother had gifted the family with money within the past 5 years, so now she can't qualify for Medicaid. Thus, the family needs to come together as a unit to help out.

Tell your Aunt that you plan to move out on your own and that she will need to make some arrangement to get help for her own mother. And that you will help within reason.... otherwise you will crash and burn from exhaustion... and the stress will age you beyond belief. No grandchild should have to go through that.

Next you will be taking care of your Aunt and her siblings.
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Where are you living? If it is her home, that could be part of the reason Medicaid is being denied. Orrrr, maybe Medicaid was never applied for because the kids wanted to protect the house.

I know we all sound suspicious, but that is because we've all been to the rodeo. You are a babe in the woods.

So, gram needs help. There's no more money.

Call Adult Protective Services. Tell them you are gram's only caregiver...she's out of money (at least that YOU know about)...and you've been told she is not entitled to Medicaid although no one will tell you why.

In other words, call out the dogs.
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Mincemeat, Your right and Thank you , Thank You everyone for your advice !
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Nan, please listen to everyone's advice. I started helping dad with mom when I was about 23-24 years old. I did NOT know that mom's 'illness' would last this long. As in 23 years later! The longer I stayed, the less freedom I got. I kept a low paying job because it gave me flexibility if I needed to work part-time to help dad with mom, or to call in and say that I cannot come to work today because.... Sadly, my social security income - when I do retire- will be too low to rely on. Aunty is POA, let her do her job. You also need to start seriously on getting a job for your old age. You don't want to end up like grandma - at the mercy of others. You can still be there for grandma on your time offs - but not as her major caregiver. Let Aunty know this - otherwise, she will not do anything. I hate it when adult children tricks their nieces/nephews/children to 'take over' the caregiving of their parent. They lived their lives the way they wanted (job,marry, kids, grands,etc..) They should step up to the plate.

Set goals on what you want in your life, for grandma's care - and how to Reasonably achieve this. Have a Plan A and a Plan B. Plan A's rarely happen. Don't give ultimatums that you're not prepared to carry out. Please update us. There's always someone here who give viewpoints that none of thought to mention.
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Here's the thing. Grandma's money should be paying for Grandma's care, and whether it's her money in the bank of government funds that arise from her and her spouse having paid taxes for 70 years, it doesn't make a difference. If grandma has dementia, she's eventually going to need 24 hour a day supervision. What are hourly caregiver rates in your area? Here, it's in the 20-25 dollar an hour range. That's a lot of money for any family to donate for very long.
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bookluvr, i feel like I'am on the same road you traveled, I plan on setting goals,etc and Babalou- 20-25 dollars an hour for a caregiver is the rate here to.I never thought about calling adult protective services- Maggie.
Thank You Everyone for the advice, I need to sign off for now.

I will try to up-date
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Nan - you need to try to find out exactly why gran cannot qualify for Medicaid. & remember all this when family starts wanting you to caregive. Put on your best Nancy Drew and snoop about...if an application was done and denied, there will have been quite a flurry of letters from your states department of aging or health services; do "told me" statements rather than ask ?'s, like say to a cousin, "grannie told me she gave Uncle Buck $ to buy a car" rather than " did grannie give you $", family tend to love ragging on family when it comes to $. Also if there was a house / land property transfer, that's super easy to find out as most places have tax assessor records on-line searchable for free and nominal cost to download the actual document. There's a paper trail in all this.

Also several have mentioned that $ transfer is probably why grannie can't get Medicaid. You need to clearly understand how this works:
If at anytime from the date of grannies Medicaid application back 5 full years, grannie gave or transferred any assets to family, that places a transfer penalty on grannie in which she will be ineligible for Medicaid to pay even IF she is now impoverished and qualifies both financially & medically for NH Medicaid.

The application can require that 5 years of bank statements, award letters from SS and retirement along with a lot of other documents are provided to the state for review. If not included, she gets denied. If the documents show $ that is clearly not spent on her care or for her owned property (like a home that is in her name), then the state places a transfer penalty based on the amount your state pays for room & board @ a NH and for a set # of days.

Like for TX, day rate is $155 day, so if grannie gave uncle buck 5K, transferred her home with a tax assessor value of 80K to cousin Amy & then auntie wrote checks to herself as DPOA for 20K but had no receipts to show what for....then state places a 677 day penalty on grannies Medicaid eligibility. $ 105,000 divided by $ 155 is 677 days. So someone will have to caregive at home for over 2 years before Medicaid will or private pay NH for 677 days.

I'd make cousin Amy to quit claim the property back to grannie so that it's only 6 mo of caregiving needed which probably can be done if family pulls together.

Auntie was DPOA, all this is her responsibility to deal with.
Don't let yourself become the pinanta with family getting all the candy & $.
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I got good legal advice from the attorney that set up my mother's will. He said...take care of them with their $ as long as you can. Do not do anything else with that $$. He said the ability to look back is fierce and it is not worth any spend down games at all. Gotta like a lawyer that is a straight shooter and hates games!!
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There IS a reason she wouldn't qualify if she was destitute. If she got destitute by giving all her assets away in the five years before applying, then that would be a reason for not qualifying immediately.
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You can always ask, and they have two ways to respond. Just tell them the truth and ask.
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You could call your local Office of Aging to see if they have or know of free aides. When u get the info, give it to ur Aunt. She is going to have to provide proof of income. No money, she must have SS. Does she have a home? Maybe she turned it over to Aunt. If within the last five years, thats why she was turned down.
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