Can a POA who also lives with the parent with dementia receive fees for caregiving? If so, does this need to be in a contract as well as transparent to other family members?
I was told in the past that family members who help out with caregiving can be paid for their services by a leader of a caregiver support group.
Has anyone else come across this potential issue?
Never heard of a Caregiver support group paying for care. Pointing you in the right direction, maybe. Its very hard to get paid for caring giving. Medicaid has in home services. They may pay you but it won't be much and maybe not 40 hrs a week. Call your County Office of Aging and see if they know of any programs.
A contract protects the care receiver if they apply for Medicaid within the "look-back" period of the application process (between 2.5 and 5 years, depending on the state).
A live-in caregiver often supplies more than 40 yrs of care per week for which they are not paid OT, and is basically "on call" even when sleeping. IMO it's not the optimal arrangement. If the PoA/caregiver becomes sick or goes on vacation... then what? There should always be more than 1 caregiver. When the care receiver needs more and more hands-on attention and oversight, this will likely burn out the caregiver, no matter if they are getting paid.
In my state (MN) a caregiver is never a contract worker. This means "someone" or a bookkeeper or payroll service will need to do the paycheck withholding, do quarterly reporting and submit W2s at year end. This guarantees that the care giver is paying into their SS and Medicare. If you search on this forum you will read many tales of woe of live-in, unpaid (or cash paid) caregivers who got to their own retirement to discover they have barely enough SS to survive, no less pay for care.
It may be possible for the caregiver to be paid through a county elder waiver program, other programs, or Medicaid -- but mostly it is not FT hours and the lowest wage legally possible.
ANY payments should be made through a contract. It should be fair market value for services provided. I would have mom pay an attorney for the contract, one that knows you are POA.
POA does NOT need to, nor should they, discuss moms financial situation with others. Quite frankly, it's no one's business but mom and whom she is paying.