I know that paying for nursing homes can be a real fustercluck, and I have heard that if a parent is in a non-Medicaid facility and the money runs out before the parent can be transferred, their children are on the hook for the cost.
Is this true?
If the parents gave the children their money some number of years too late, yes. Because it’s not really the children’s money, the way the government sees it, it’s the parent’s money.
If it’s a non-Medicaid facility, presumably someone signed a contract with the nursing facility arranging for the parent’s care.
So is this a question about something that’s actually happening in your life (or that of an acquaintance), or are you just being curious?
And do you need an answer relatively fast?
I interpreted the ‘non-Medicaid facility’ part of the OP to mean no government involvement, strictly private actors.
Though Medicare will pick up all of the costs for 30 days of a nursing home, IIRC, and pick up a share of them for another…90 days, I think. (My MIL went through all this just last year, you’d think I’d remember.)
Perhaps the OP is confused about the Medicaid lookback provision that prevents the elderly from transfering their assets so they can qualify for Medicaid.
If we aren’t talking about any government programs, period, then you’ll have to look at the contract with the facility. But just like any other living arrangement, if you can’t pay, you don’t stay.
There are also filial responsibility laws in 29 U.S. states. These laws require children to provide for the care of their parents. They were mostly dormant leftovers from before Medicaid, but recently there have been a few high profile cases where children were sued by nursing homes for their parents’ costs and were required to pay under filial responsibility.
From my understanding - regarding New Jersey, specifically - the answer is no. My dad was burning through over $4,000 a month for a not-so-great assisted living, and my stepmother was burning through $7,000 a month for a “memory care” facility - she by then had about a 3-second retention span. Even with my dad’s good pension, they were drawing down their house equity. Fortunately (???) my stepmother died in less than a year, and so my father was almost breaking even, until he ended up in a nursing home after an operation, now costing $390 a day(!!). (Plus $200 a day rental on the airbed mattress to take care of the bedsores he’d earned when they didn’t handle his diapers in a timely manner…)
If all he had to pay was the rent, he’d have been fine in assisted living. But they nickle-and-dime like most medical care - $X to do his laundry, $X to have someone come in to see that he takes his meds, etc. etc.
He’d cleverly given away a decent amount to my nieces before he ended up in a home, so he had that 2-year waiting period before Medicare should kick in to help pay for the cost of his care… but he fell also into that grey area - making enough money that Medicare would not cover him anyway, but not enough to cover all his expenses.
He died before his home equity got too low, so money was not an object. But I did ask the same question, and the answer was that a nursing home or assisted living cannot simply boot you out if you have nowhere to go, just as a hospital cannot simply dump their non-paying patients on skid row. The home can however transfer you to a “lower cost facility”. I will let you dwell on the concept of a lower cost seniors’ facility and what that could be…
AFAIK New Jersey does not have a filial responsibility law, and I don’t know what happens if a state had to chase children in Canada.
We were in the process of trying to get him moved to Canada, but the usual paperwork was holding things up - plus IIRC he would be instantly covered by provincial Medicare when he arrived; but for the first two years he would be solely responsible for his $C190/day care, after that he would be eligible for a $98/day maximum charge based on income (he would have paid the maximum). In some provinces, the government basically sets the terms for managing all nursing homes and allocates spaces to seniors in the queue on the basis of need, and covers any personal shortfall.
No, it’s not a personal issue, but I have been hearing stories both IRL and on TV about adult children with their own responsibilities who had to pay for their parents’ nursing home care for the reasons I mentioned in the OP, and wondered why it would be their responsibility.
If they aren’t talking about states with filial responsibility laws (which as far as I can tell are rarely enforced-there was one high profile case where I suspect that the nursing home only sued because the patient left the US while her Medicaid application was still pending) , they are probably using “had to” more loosely than you are taking it. Although it is currently illegal under Federal law for a nursing home to make a third party guarantee a *requirement *of admission, I don’t know when that took effect - but as far as I can tell, even today a third party can voluntarily agree to be responsible for payment if , for example, a nursing home initially rejects the person because they don’t have sufficient funds to pay. It’s entirely possible that most or all of those people meant “had to” in the sense of “they rejected her because she can’t pay for it and if I don’t pay, she won’t be admitted”.
I know a hospital in California(?) got into trouble for dropping off indigent patients on skid row in their hospital gown when they were finished treatment and had no home… but if someone ends up in hospital and then has nowhere to go home to, what happens to them? Can the hospital force a care home to take them? DO they just sit in the hospital? (That sadly seems to be the result in Canada. Limit the number of (paid) care home beds available, and patients pile up in hospital waiting if the panel decides they are not capable of taking care of themselves in the house or apartment they came from…)
I can only speak about my experience, but in my city, it seems the hospital can’t discharge patients without the needed services in place (whether that’s a nursing home, rehab facility or home care) but that is a separate issue from those who are homeless but don’t need medical services. Those people get discharged with a referral to the shelter system.
If the parent and child are not residents of the same state, is that relevant?
In Canada there is no panel, it’s about availability. If there isn’t any, you stay in hospital till they find you a spot. But it might be outside where you want to be, a community outside your area. In which case, you may choose to wait for a bed closer to your husband, kids, family etc. Or it may be your special needs, Alzheimer’s etc, require a particular type of facility. So again, based on availability you may wait while they locate a place to suit your need.
It’s called Community Care Access Centre, it’s NOT a panel, and they do great work under very challenging circumstances. And are good at what they do. If you’re taking your loved one home to care for, they ensure you have the support you need, including equipment, at no cost to you. A LOT of support!