I’ve been writing a lot about caregiver contracts lately. That’s because they represent the ideal solution for so many families.
Many children become part-time or even full-time caregivers for their aging parents. Sometimes a child needs to be paid for this – usually that is the only way she can afford to leave her job in order to stay home and care for Mom. And in some families, the parent insists on paying the child, or at least contributing to groceries and utilities – because she doesn’t want to feel she is taking advantage of anyone or being a burden.
Earlier posts describe why a written caregiver contract is important to prepare for the possibility of a future MassHealth nursing home application, but here is something that would apply more immediately: in addition to drafting a good contract, an elder law attorney will also set the family up with a payroll service that will make sure the child receives the benefits of an employee. Namely, the child will have two special protections.
The first is worker’s compensation coverage. Have you ever helped a frail elder with a shower? How easy is it to hurt your back? Very. With a proper caregiver contract arrangement, that child can collect worker’s comp from her injury.
The second protection is the unemployment benefit. Sometimes, no matter how good a job a child does of keeping Mom at home, there comes a time where the care Mom needs exceeds what the child can provide, and she must move to a nursing home. Now the child is unemployed.
For so many families, paying a child to care for the parent is the best solution. Having informal, unwritten understandings is typical, but leaves both the parent and child open to too many pitfalls. By working with an elder law attorney to craft a good caregiver contract and to set up a payroll service to take care of the deductions and taxes, both the parent and child will be much better protected in the long run.