How to Pay for Home Care in New York State

How to Pay for Home Care for your Loved One

There is good news and bad news in the answer to this question. There are solutions, too. These solutions will help you secure home care, but you have to do some work to get there. Caring Professionals have specialists to help you do just that. Contact us here.

First the good news. If you have long term care insurance or are a veteran, you will qualify for home care. There will be some limitations and technical things to follow such as a lag or a finite number of days you can get for free under your coverage. Worry not. We, at Caring Professionals are seasoned at dealing with this. Ashie Schreier, our Long Term Care insurance in-house expert, and his team will walk you through the paperwork. They will also advise you on what to do, if and when these benefits end. There are a number of options for seniors that an individual can exercise, including a reverse mortgage line of credit, Medicaid is another one of the options for funding home care. More on that soon.

If you have Medicare, you will receive home care usually for a few hours daily after an episode such as a hospitalization. You can receive home care after three episodes per year under Medicare.

If you already have Medicaid, it’s very doable. It’s a process with several steps, however.

First, you have to qualify for long term care. A doctor usually initiates that process, however Caring Professionals can help guide you also. A nurse from Maximus will come and give you a thorough examination (usually almost two hours long), to see if you fit into the managed long term care category. In other words, if you fit into this category, you will get regular support to stay as healthy as possible through an MLTC.  That stands for Managed Long Term Care Plan. An MLTC is a capitated program that deals with your transportation, home care, durable medical equipment, and all of the other needs that are part of your aging in place successfully.

You will have to choose a plan. We can help you choose one but it’s ultimately your choice. You will be assigned a care manager. You will choose a home care agency to provide the care at home. And of course you will choose Caring Professionals where you are family. Caring Professionals will give you as many hours of care during the week as the MLTC allows. This will depend on your ability to perform activities of daily living, shop for yourself, do laundry, cook, and other regular tasks. You will start with  our intake team, next you will move along to communicate with a coordinator and scheduler assigned to you. They will make sure you get all the hours to which you are entitled. And it’s all free!

If you don’t have Medicaid, worry not. Many years ago, New York State expanded the eligibility for Medicaid for people over 65 as well as people with disabilities. The idea was that elderly people should not have to spend their every last dollar on their care when they become enfeebled. The rules were changed to include moderate income seniors who would not traditionally qualify. 

The basic income guidelines remain the same as for traditional Medicaid but you are allowed to have a home and some money in the bank, with some limitations. Your regular living expenses will not count as income if you set things up according to the state’s guidelines. Caring Professionals will refer you to a FREE expert Medicaid planning company which will help you enroll. They will advise you based on your personal circumstances and submit your application. This company is experienced and  staffed by seasoned professionals with qualifications from HRA (the city agency which administers Medicaid in NYC).Then Caring Professionals will help you through the process outlined above for getting home care at no cost.

If you are a holocaust survivor and require home care, Caring Professionals will help you. If you reside in Brooklyn, we will help you enroll in a special program that will provide some hours of care by our qualified aides. If you don’t live in Brooklyn, we can refer you to other agencies in the metro NYC area that offer similar programs for holocaust survivors. It’s as simple as that!

Whatever your circumstances, Caring Professionals can advise you and help you through the process of securing home care at no cost. There are options and we are experts at making it happen. We always help.

If you would like to talk to the us about home care for you or your loved ones, please get in touch below.