The money desk
The benefit you are waiting on is not coming. Here is who actually pays.
You are the one with the spreadsheet, trying to work out who actually pays for a person in the house and whether you can even touch Dad's account. Medicare was supposed to cover this, someone mentioned Medicaid, there may be a policy in a drawer, and you still cannot write the check because the papers are not in order.
This desk is for that hour. Eight pages, each linked to the public page it came from. You fill in her numbers. We do not invent them.
Three facts before you open any page. Medicare.gov says it does not pay for long-term care, and you pay all costs for most of it. The same agency says home health does not pay for 24-hour-a-day care at home, or for personal care when that is the only care needed. Missouri's Medicaid program, MO HealthNet, can help with benefits Medicare does not cover, like personal care services. That is the map. The rest of this site is the valves.
Open the page you need
Eight questions, in the order the money arrives
Start with who pays. Then Medicare, the door everyone tries first. Then Missouri's Medicaid, the policy, the accounts, the runway, the tax question, and the free counselors.
What to do tonight, before you open a new account
Write down whose name is on the checking account, the Social Security deposit, and the house. If you cannot find the papers, that is the first job.
Form CMS-10106 is how a parent gives 1-800-MEDICARE permission to talk to you. A power of attorney is a different paper. Do not call Medicare until you know which one you have.
Look at one bank statement for a premium draft to a long-term care carrier. If it is there, file from the first day of care so the waiting period starts on a dated invoice.
Do not gift money this week to "get Mom on Medicaid." Medicaid.gov says people who need long-term services can be denied coverage if they transferred assets for less than fair market value during the five-year period preceding their Medicaid application. That question belongs with an elder law attorney.
If you live an hour or more away, the National Institute on Aging calls you a long-distance caregiver. The sister desk Far Away Daughter is written for that distance. If the fight is about who pays a sister to do the work, that is Who Pays for Mom. This site stays on the public payers and the papers.
Ask for a call back
Name, phone, town. Nothing about anyone's health.
This form goes to New Plan Care, the paid placement above, and nowhere else. The form is a callback request, not a matching tool, and nobody gets scored by filling it in. If you would rather not type, Call (314) 405-0887.
We ask for a name, a phone number and a town or ZIP. We do not ask what condition anyone has, what medications they take, or anything else about their health, and you should not type any of that here. Those questions belong with their doctor.
What this desk will not do
It will not quote an hourly figure. No public dataset holds New Plan Care's prices. It will not diagnose anyone, draft a power of attorney, or rank a hospital. Help at home here is non-medical: meals, a hand on the stairs, a reminder for the tablets already in the labeled box, a person in the house. Symptom and dose questions go to the physician. Legal questions belong with an attorney. Every fact links out. The sources page lists the URLs and the date they were opened.