Over the past month I have seen several of our members state that they do not want to be their LO's Rep Payee.

I think that they believe that this will be a nightmare for which they will be responsible.

The benifits of being your LO's Rep payee is that you can speak directly to Medicare, Meidcade and SS if there is a denial of service or other problem.

The cons are that you have to once a year fill out a 4 question reprt of how you spent your LO'
s SS funds.

My Mom gets $1300 a month in SS. Her NH bed costs $6000 a month. The first couple of years I was Rep Payee, I tried to portion out the three catagories of spending they require. Last year I told them that all the money was spent on housing. They questioned that and I sent them a letter stating Mom's ALF and NH costs for the past year along with a scold for even questioning the expenditures. I never heard Boo from them.

Become your LO's Representative Payee. It allows you to question medicare/Medicade decisions and gives you power. It does not in any way require you to be responsible financially for your LO.

You do not need to be POA for your LO, you need to have your LO's Doctor attest that your LO is no longer able to manage their finances.

Thank you for this information. I had never considered a need to be my LO's Rep Payee. I've just been feeling my way through this maze. I've put off getting POA and if I don't get on it soon, I'm going to run into trouble. As long as her income goes straight into her checking account and I pay her bills electronically, I haven't had a problem.

Just a note of clarification.

Social Security does not recognize POA, you cannot use it to become a Representative Payee. You must have your LO's Physician fill out the short one page questionaire on the form

Ytram,

How do you think SS would respond if you were paid for caring for your loved one and they were not at a care facility. Certainly 24 hour care is a big responsibility. Do they consider that when it is a family member who provides the care?; or do they just accept actual housing, food and clothing cost etc. as acceptable expenses?

Jenny:

The only monies you have to report on is your LO's Social Security income.

You would have to ask SS on this one, but I can't see why your pay could not be included, you could if someone else were paid. I suspect that you spend more than her SS income on her food, rent, and utilities. They don't ask for back-up but you should have it in your back pocket. If your LO lives with you, then you divide the housing costs, food and utilities by the number of persons in your household. Even when Mom lived in her house, she could not have lived on her SS income alone.

When I cared for my grandfather because my AD mother no longer could, I was not a Rep Payee for him. As ytram says, you have zero input with Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and any other related program. You cannot question treatment or lack of treatment, payment or lack of payment, medicines or lack of medicines, etc.

I learned a lot caring for my grandfather. Needless to say, I became a Rep Payee for my mother while she was still living independently with the help of part-time aides.

Jenny, if you become rep payee for your mother, have her check automatically deposited in a separate checking account. Actually, I think they require that now. Anyway, whatever payments you make from that account are obviously recorded and you have records. When it comes time for the annual audit, you have your records. Keep the receipts just in case any expenses are questioned. In the 4 years I've been Rep Payee, Soc. Sec. called me once regarding a huge difference in balance from the previous year. It had all went for housing costs at that time and I had receipts to prove it if I needed to. I provided the info over the phone. No further questions.

Being a Rep Payee made the path a little easier when I had to put together the ghastly amount of information required for Medicaid. Because she is now on Medicaid, I can still participate in her medical care in situations not covered by the health proxy.

Frankly, dealing with financial instituions was more difficult than being the Rep Payee. Don't put off the Durable POA, Health Proxy, or Rep Payee steps. Trust me.

Several years ago ... my attorney told me we could deduct wages etc. if we drew up a contract that spelled out exactly who/what/why. I assume its still the same.

I believe that you can deal directly with Social Security, Medicare, etc, without being Rep Payee. They do not recognize a POA, but they have their own forms which allow you to contact them directly. Medicare requires their version of a HIPAA waiver, for example. And if I recall correctly, you can use your POA to sign the HIPAA waiver for your ADLO.

If SS is automatically deposited into a bank account in the names of your loved one and you, then you can handle the finances without being rep payee. Most interactions with SS can be done by web or via automated telephone systems, and you can use those yourself to make inquiries, change banks, etc., if you know your ADLO's SSN, birthdate, and so forth.

When and if SS decides (realizes) the loved one is too disabled to manage his/her own finances, then you will need to file for Rep Payee, and file the annual reports etc.

CAVEAT:

If there is a living spouse, and if the loved one is on Medicaid, there may well be a downside to becoming a Representative Payee. I discovered this when I went to the Social Security Office to apply for RP status. (My mother had MediCal for her NH.)

Medicaid or MediCal in most states permits a, "spousal allowance" from the social security check of the LO who is in a nursing home if the spouse living at home is at a pre-determined income threshold.

My step-dad's spousal allowance from Mom's social security check was $266/month. IF YOU APPLY FOR RESPRESENTATIVE PAYEE, YOU CANNOT HAVE A "SPOUSAL ALLOWANCE."

Every penny MUST be accounted for in periodic Social Security audits and none of it can be assigned to anyone or anything other than the LO who the social security check comes to.

I chose NOT to apply for RP in light of that. Mom's Social Security check was on auto deposit to her bank account. I was on the account with her. By doing this I never, ever ran into any problems and I was able to apply $266/month to step-dad which helped pay for his prescription co-pays which are quite steep.

Whenever I needed to speak to Social Security about Mom, they did so without difficulty. I think it would only have become a problem if I wanted to change the bank account.

You can call Social Security and ask about this and verify everything.

Just one more thing to think about . . . .

Johanna C.

They must stay up nights, thinking of ways to complicate everything.

I don't suppose they explained why they make this exception?

If one needed to change banks and were willing to claim to be one's ADLO, one could do so using the automated telephone system. So I've heard...

quote:

Originally posted by JAB:
I believe that you can deal directly with Social Security, Medicare, etc, without being Rep Payee. They do not recognize a POA, but they have their own forms which allow you to contact them directly. Medicare requires their version of a HIPAA waiver, for example. And if I recall correctly, you can use your POA to sign the HIPAA waiver for your ADLO.

If SS is automatically deposited into a bank account in the names of your loved one and you, then you can handle the finances without being rep payee. Most interactions with SS can be done by web or via automated telephone systems, and you can use those yourself to make inquiries, change banks, etc., if you know your ADLO's SSN, birthdate, and so forth.

When and if SS decides (realizes) the loved one is too disabled to manage his/her own finances, then you will need to file for Rep Payee, and file the annual reports etc.

I have to agree. I am not Dad's rep payee and I haven't had much trouble. In fact, I have dealt several times with Medicaid and SS. I had his check direct deposited and didn't have trouble. I just don't want to become is Payee. At some point I will put the NH in charge of that.