Families will soon be able to act as paid caregivers for relatives – including parents – who need intense in-home medical care, under a new MassHealth plan.
The MassHealth Adult Family Care Program matches individuals who need assistance with activities of daily living with host families who provide those services in a home setting. Services can include assistance with activities of daily living such as bathing, dressing, incontinence management and other personal care.
The new Enhanced MassHealth Adult Family Care program will soon be able to meet the needs of individuals requiring a higher level of care by broadening the spectrum of caregivers who are eligible to participate.
Families, or hosts, as they are called in the program, receive about $18,000 to provide care that prevents or delays institutional care.
“People express a clear preference for being cared for in a home setting,” said John O’Neill, executive director of Somerville-Cambridge Elder Services, which provides the program in a number of communities in Greater Boston. “Enhanced Adult Family Care is a wonderful option for MassHealth beneficiaries who would like to receive care from a loved one in a home setting.”
The program allows children to be paid caregivers for their parents. The Enhanced Adult Family Care program will not only allow elders and persons with disabilities to move into a caregiver’s home, but will allow a caregiver to move into the individual’s home. Participants must be 16 years or older and meet MassHealth financial and clinical eligibility standards. Caregivers may be any friend or family member other than a spouse, parent, or legally responsible relative and must meet qualifications specified by the state.
MassHealth pays for Enhanced Adult Family Care if an individual is financially eligible for MassHealth and requires physical assistance with at least three of the following activities: bathing, dressing, toileting, transferring, ambulating, eating; or, physical assistance with two of the activities above and management of behaviors that require caregiver intervention such as wandering, verbally abusive behavioral symptoms, physically abusive behavioral symptoms, socially inappropriate or disruptive behavioral symptoms, or resisting care.
For more information, call the SCES Aging Information Center at 617-628-2601 ext. 3151.
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