Support Center: Protecting Your Care Recipient's Assets

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Protecting Your Care Recipient's Financial Security

You notice that your mom needs more help at home. You decide to look at home health care to help with your personal care and housekeeping.

Your down-on-his-luck brother reappears, anxious to heal the family rift and help care for your parents. “I want to get involved,” he says. “You can trust me now. I'd like to help manage the money and the decisions.”

Before hiring home care or granting access to the purse strings, take time to protect your care recipient's financial security. It's not that you don't trust, it's that you value prudence.

1. Freeze your care recipient's credit reports. Freezing the reports means that new credit cannot be opened in your care recipient's name. New credit cards can't be opened, and major purchases cannot take place under your care recipient's credit. Read this tip for more information.

2. Consult an elder law attorney about protecting assets by creating a living trust. You can hold property and assets in a trust—which guards against an individual moving ownership of assets from your care recipient to him or her. Visit here for more information.

3. Secure documents such as checkbooks and tax returns as well as expensive items, such as jewelry, in a safe or safety deposit box. Don't leave temptations unattended.

4. If you haven't done so already, have a durable power of attorney for health care and finances drawn up for your care recipient. If you live in one state and your care recipient in another, have an elder law attorney create documents for both states.

5. Use direct deposit for Social Security checks (and other monthly checks, such as pension). For more information about enrolling in direct deposit, call the Go Direct helpline at (800) 333-1795 or sign-up online at http://www.GoDirect.org.

6. When hiring in-home help, always do a background check and call references (and ensure a home care agency does, as well). You can check out home care agencies at Home Care Compare, a service provided by Medicare. Visit here.

7. Ask friends and family members for referrals when hiring help, whether from an agency or on your own. These recommendations can be invaluable.

8. Communicate clearly your expectations of everyone involved in caregiving—included hired professionals. And, keep the lines of communication open: Ask questions, welcome feedback and listen carefully.

9. Stay involved. Make unannounced visits when the home care worker will be with your care recipient, stay on top of financial information, and question anything that seems odd or unusual.

10. When your gut screams, act.

Recommended Reading:

How To Ensure Relatives Don't Rip You Off

Communication Ensures Effective Relationship with an Agency

Resources:

National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys: http://www.naela.org/

National Association for Home Care and Hospice: http://nahc.org/consumer/home.html

AARP: http://www.aarp.org/families/caregiving/caring_help/a2004-11-30-agency.html

Administration on Aging: http://aoa.gov/eldfam/eldfam.asp

Financial Caregiving: A Survival Guide: http://www.fdic.gov/consumers/consumer/news/cnsum97/fincare.html

Hiring an Independent Caregiver, A MetLife Since You Care Guide

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