My in laws are 94 and 92. They recently moved to independent living with my "prodding" using what I learned from reading Being Mortal by Dr. Gawande.
My mother in law has diagnosed dementia and my father in law, while still able to take care of his own ADL's has early vascular dementia so his judgement and problem solving ability are impaired and he is increasingly forgetful. There is the opportunity to add nursing care to their living arrangements as this becomes needed. I am a nurse, about to be retired and I have been coordinating care for my inlaws. I coordinated their move, make sure medications are ordered, and attend all MD appts for both of them as the neuropsych testing confirmed that he cannot manage complex medical details. My profession as a nurse is that of care manager, so I do this for a living.
My husband is in agreement that I should be paid for time spent in coordinating and managing their care. My question is, the best timing to do that? My father in law is verbally appreciative of my efforts as are my sisters in law, who are both 2000 miles away. I have been keeping track of trips, mileage and time spent. Can I wait to submit an invoice to the estate to be paid by my husband, the POA or do I need a care contract in place before I can be paid anything? They have enough financial assets available that I don't see them ever needing to apply for Medicaid to pay for their care. I feel a bit guilty about asking to be being paid for my efforts and I would like to avoid asking my father in law for payment as he and my sister's in law seem to think that this should just be the price of being in the family. Many years ago my father in laws parents lived with his sister when they needed help so again, I think they just assume this is my job to do. So I would like to also avoid a Care Contract at this point unless my husband can handle it all. I am really taking the burden off my husband who is willing to "hire" me and my sisters in law who have not been asked. But between the 2 of them, my in laws need a lot of attention, even though they live in a facility. I don't believe as POA, my husband would have to ask his sisters permission to pay me for my efforts, with proper record keeping of course. We all get along and I don't want to cause problems later but I also don't really want to spend 10-15 hours a week (some weeks, not all) coordinating care, going to doctors and managing details that I could be spending doing something for myself. The company I work for charges $150/hr for this type of work just to put it all in perspective. I would not be asking for that much of course.
I would appreciate any thoughts.
Have the agreement prepared by a lawyer and have both your husband and your sister in law sign off on it.
If you wait until the estate is settled, one you could be waiting a long time to be paid and two you may find that siblings who have gotten along for years, no longer do so.