I am the assigned agent to my father’s Health Care Directive. My sibling holds Power of Attorney. I happily oversee all caregiving duties. We have a private agency that provides 24/7 in-home care. Quite often we are left with caretakers that don’t come to their shifts. Each time I drop everything and fill in. (He is post-stroke and cannot be left alone.) Unfortunately, this is becoming a regular thing where I am left caretaking one or two days each week.
I asked the POA if I could be paid $15/hour for the days the caretakers don’t show and am needed to fill in. This is WELL below the hourly rate for our area.
He said absolutely not. He will not pay family for caregiving.
In a nut shell, even though I have the Health Care Directive and can legally make my dad’s caregiving plan, my sibling holds the POA and says he has the right to refuse payment of services he does not agree with.
Do I have any options for getting payment? It seems he’s overstepping his authority as I know my dad would happily pay me especially since it is half of what the agency charges. It’s so depressing.
It's simple, when the caregivers are a no show you load up your father and drop him off with your POA sibling. Sibling is at work or doing something? Not your problem.
1. Take you POA with the additional duties assigned to a certified elder attorney and see if you have recourse. For sure I would always bill the FPOA, whether he paid or not, just to have a record. If your expanded duties spelled out in the POA state that you will decide where dad lives, then brother can’t put him where he chooses. His job is to pay the bills. But do let a qualified attorney go over this with you. Perhaps a letter to brother from the attorney could set him straight? I appreciate that he is holding you hostage with his threats and that can be frightening when you are worried for what is best for your dad.
2. Check with the service and see if they can hire you for the days the other attendant doesn’t show. Then they can pay you and brother can pay them.
That said, you don't have to step in. Get your brother to handle hiring care and if they don't show up, hiring emergency care. It will come at a great cost. I think you would only need to do it a few times before you can discuss the situation again and get paid. If you keep stepping in without pay, he will keep relying on you. Unfortunately your Dad is stuck in the middle but he did decide this would be the best solution when he wrote his POA directives.
I think you should file a petition in court for conservatorship of your father and for his finances.
Your brother is out of state and it does not make sense for him to be in charge of anything when you are the one near your father and who handles all of his care.
Explain to the court when the hearing happens that you already have your father's Health Care Directive and that your brother the POA refuses to pay for caregiving services that you and your father's doctors deem necessary for him. Your brother is derelict of his duty as your father's POA by refusing to pay for his services. Even if those services are being provided by you.
I don't see how the court would not rule in your favor. Also, is your father at all able to indicate that he would be agreeable to you getting conservatorship for him?
When you file for conservatorship, your brother will have to be informed when the court proceeding will be. If he does not show up or send legal representation in his abscence he may lose his POA by default. That happens all the time.
Talk to him one more time and tell him that you will not provide free caregiving services again. If he still refuses to be reasonable, file for conservatorship.
Team work! Probably dad's intent but has blown up.
I would bet that the POA's include language about those providing services shall be paid a reasonable amount. My mom's did.
OP, you can even say brother's behavior (failure to pay you, or someone) is life-threatening. If you OP weren't filling in the gaps, your father would be having many more health problems.
"Yes, I am female. POA sibling is male".
You have a brother problem.
Brother does not value your time & labour.
Ask him directly to explain himself. Is this because you are family? Or because you are FEMALE? Or because he sees this as your choice to turn up to provide such care?
If the care is getting unreliable, how do you all feel about residential care instead?
you really don't have an option I know of. Your brother is FPOA. He may, in fact, have to answer for allowing a "relative" of the principal to be paid to give care.
I am hoping that the principal doesn't like with you, and that you can simply refuse to do the care when the caregiver doesn't show up. If you are doing overseeing of caregivers you are ALREADY doing service without payment. Tell brother he is POA and he can now handle it ALL. If he wishes you might suggest medication on this.
For family medication contact:
APFMnet.org (Academy of Professional Family Mediators
or
ACRnet.org (assn. for Conflict Resolution)
they can guide you to mediators in your area.
Good luck.
And family in most states can be paid, but definitely a contract should be in place and it setup legally, dad becomes employer via bro POA, with all withholdings. And I would not discount l st because you are family. In fact the documents probably require market rate payment.
No. He has the right (in fact, a duty) to refuse payment of fees which he does not agree have been legitimately incurred on your father's behalf. But say for example that you commissioned a podiatrist to cut your father's toenails, and your brother didn't see why you couldn't do that yourself, he couldn't refuse to settle the invoice just because he doesn't agree that the service is necessary: it's a standard health care appointment solely and exclusively for your father's benefit and falling within your remit for decisions.
The sticky bit here is that you are not incurring any fees by doing the work yourself; and no you can't just award yourself a caregiver's contract.
Are you losing any money?
I certainly am helping my brother (and other 4 siblings) gain more inheritance money by doing the service for my father for free that otherwise would have been paid to a service.
One child has POA for finance. That child is responsible for using the parent's funds to pay for goods and services on the parent's behalf.
The other child has POA for medical and welfare. That child is responsible for sourcing and commissioning goods and services to meet the parent's needs.
So that in this case, the OP can't just walk when the parent needs care: she is responsible for ensuring that the parent's needs are met.
But because there was no caregiver's contract, and the parent is no longer able to create one, and the parent's finance POA doesn't agree that there should be one, the Medical POA is left... up a gum tree, basically.
The remaining option is to source additional services and/or to get stroppy with the current provider.
The learning point for future MPOAs is to check that this particular duck is not missing from their row before they accept responsibility.
What can the OP do now to: support Dad, be compensated & also keep relations with POA Bro intact?