We travelled an hour away back and forth daily to move my mother to a nursing facility. Packing and sorting through her belongings took a week of our time. We could have hired movers, but I thought paying ourselves would be cheaper and we could sort through what she still needed and what could be disposed of. We have a power of attorney and control of all her medical and financial affairs. We also kept a worksheet of travel miles and hours we spent.
BUT if they need to apply to Medicaid to pay for their long term stay @ the NH, the probability will be that Medicaid will do a transfer penalty for the $$ that was given to you to pay for your services from the parents bank account. It will be viewed as gifting and the amount of it and any other $ given, or transferred, to you or other family will be a # of day based transfer penalty. Its my experience that if they find 1 issue for possible transfer penalty, the state will kick the application up from the local caseworker to a regional caseworker who has more forensic experience and programs to ferret out other transfer issues. So think about what other transfers could be out there…..like if grandma gave grandkid $ 300 for graduation.
For Medicaid, the state will need to see several months or years of banking records (for my mom it was a 3 year & 6 month review of all her banking & financials), so the probability will be that the payments will show up. If it was done via a legit business and paid via a check to the biz there will be no transfer penalty. But personally paid to you & your hubs can be totally a penalty. The mileage has to be based on the current federally set rate too - you can deduct at the federal rate at either the biz rate if you have a legit biz you can run this through or the medical rate which is lower.
the state views caregiving and errands run for your parents or elder family members as done for free and out of love and familial sense of responsibility UNLESS there are caregiver contracts set up in advance with caregiver getting a 1099 from parent and both duly reporting whatever's to IRS. Now penalties can be waived or reduced (I did this for a car mom gave to worthless nephew right at the edge of the 5 year review) but it will require that you go out and come up with whatever documentation is needed (and in pretty quick turn around of time too) to prove the amount so that caseworker can approve the application.
Unfair, isn't it?
Does your mother still have her cognitive skills, and if so, did you discuss this with her before moving her to a facility? If she's still of sound mind, I don't think payment to you is appropriate without her concurrence.
Just as importantly, have you been paying yourselvs for any other services performed for your mother? Or is this the first time payment has been considered?
Other factors are whether there are siblings who might challenge your payment.