Wall Street Journal | By: Clare Ansberry | September 05, 2022
Interest in providing financial support for family caregivers is growing due to the workforce crisis in the care industry
Family caregivers, long the backbone of the country’s long-term care system, are increasingly tapping public and private resources to get paid for caring for loved ones.
During the pandemic, Sheila D. Johnson, 55 years old, of Richmond, Va., couldn’t get skilled nurses to help with her brother, Kevin McCain, who is paralyzed and lives with
her. She had to quit her job to take care of him.
“I still needed to work and have income so I decided I might as well try to get paid,” says Ms. Johnson, who began researching and found a Medicaid program that would
allow her to earn income for providing care. She is paid $12.70 an hour by the managed care company handling the Medicaid program for 56 hours of care a week, which is
about 40% less than she was earning from her bakery and doing social media for a farm market, but it helps. “Our expenses on the electric side are really high,” she says,
noting that her brother has a ventilator and oxygen machine that runs 24 hours a day.
“I think paid family caregivers are the way of the future,” says Denise Brown, owner of the Caregiving Years Training Academy, which offers a planning tool for families exploring potential compensation options, including Medicaid, long-term-care insurance, and the U.S. Department of Veterans A!airs, that allow eligible family caregivers to be reimbursed.
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