I'm a nurse of 40 yrs. Can I get paid by an agency for caring for my Mom?

You might be able to qualify if you go through channels to be certified by Medicare and/or medicaid. In some states Medicaid will pay for some in-home care and if you officially qualify and are certified by them you can. Other states, probably not. Medicare would be harder since they cover less in-home care but with some waivers it may work.

The hardest part of this is that states differ so widely in what they will do. You could check with an in-home health agency and see how they go about getting their workers certified. Also, if your mom is on Medicaid, see what her state will pay for.

Good luck to you. You'd think that this would be a no-brainer and I hope some day that family caregivers will get some breaks but so far there's little guarantee of that.
Carol

Is your mother on Medicaid? Would she qualify?

In Minnesota if a family member wants to and is qualified to provide care that Medicaid has approved, they have the family member go through an approved agency. That way all the employment taxes, etc. are handled appropriately. If Medicaid approves 28 hours of a personal care attendant, that is what the family member could be paid as, even if the family member has higher qualifications.

I don't know how this works in VA. If Mom is already on Medicaid, ask her caseworker.

Have you been actively employed as an RN for 95% of those 40 years, thus keeping your credentials current? (the only reason I bring this up, is there are probably people out there who got their RN degree and barely used it, about 40 years ago....and they might think they could qualify for government funds to pay for taking care of their own parent).