I am very confused as to how finances work with POA and mom's Alzheimer's in NYS. Any help?

Assisted living and Longterm care are two different things. AL u pay privately. Medicaid usually doesn't pay for it usually. Some states may, mine doesn't unless you have private paid for at least two years.

Is Mom on Medicaid for health or in home care. If for Health, she is allowed some assets. Those assets have to be spent down before Medicaid will pay for LTC. At the point that Medicaid starts paying Moms SS and pension goes to the NH. I chose to let the NH become payee for Moms pension and SS. My thought was when she died, they could deal with SS and pension if there is a problem. The spend down cap of 2k is Moms. It has to be used for her needs. A Personal Needs acct will be set up (if you chose the NH to become payee) where a small amount of money (my state $50) will be set aside for her personal needs. Any monies left from the cap and PNA when Mom passes goes to estate not to Medicaid. So, you really will have no money to handle unless you chose to pay the NH each month.

Specialized facilities like Memory Care, are private pay. If Medicaid is paying for her care, she will have no money. So she cannot pay her bills or credit card debts. You will not be held responsible to pay out of your own pocket.

Medicare pays nothing towards LTC.

If your Mom is in care and now in nursing home on medicaid then, essentially, she HAS no money. She would be down to allowable allowance for her care. I am afraid there is now no money for bills and for paying a POA. Even her taxes for her home may become problematic. I personally now would assign her money to the home she is in. You may wish to see an Elder Law Attorney with some of her remaining allowance in order to check out any other options you may have in your own state, but ordinarily, at this point, even bills owed to credit cards and etc are simply not paid. You cannot get blood out of a turnip as they say. And while Mom's credit will be dinged for non payment, there is, at this point, no reason for her to have any credit. At this point, all of her funds will go to the place giving her care.

When my mom was accepted by Medicaid in Texas, I wrote a check from her account every month to the nursing home. Of her $1200 month, she could keep $60 for personal expenses and the rest went to the facility. The $60 she kept went for her weekly shampoo and set in the facility beauty shop. That, and bi-monthly mani-pedis were the only things that would get her out of her room.

Her SS and pension need to be assigned to the nursing home. If she has long term care Medicaid it will pay the nursing home balance each month. Medicare does not pay for the nursing home. Credit card and other bills should not be paid with your funds. You will not be able to pay them. If she has a house mortgage, taxes, etc you will have to pay if you don’t want want the house foreclosed on.