Q How do nursing homes collect debt? My 71-year-old mother is being treated by hospice, in a nursing home. She owns a home (she's not married to my father) and her other asset is Social Security. The family is thinking about sending Mom to my home for care. She will owe $6,000 to $8,000 total for two nursing homes. How can I work with the nursing homes fairly? Do nursing homes have the right to freeze any future Social Security income from Mom?
A Caring for, or even about, an elderly parent is stressful on a good day. Add financial issues and the stress meter begins to look like a thermometer on a July afternoon.
Rest assured that your mother's Social Security income is protected from garnishment or other legal process with the exception of federal debts like income taxes and student loans, or to enforce child support or alimony obligations.
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Still, the nursing home is owed a debt for the care they gave your mom, and as such has the same rights as any other creditor to collect a debt.
Did you or anyone else sign a document guaranteeing payment to the nursing home? If not, the nursing home cannot collect from you or other family members.
Your mother's home, however, can eventually be used to satisfy the debt by the legal process of a lien against the property.
Some nursing homes use outside collection agencies to handle overdue bills as a normal part of doing business. After all, a nursing home's calling is caring for people, not collecting bills.
The result, however, can be a surprisingly aggressive attempt to collect from family members who are not responsible for the debt. It may include a pitch designed to appeal to your guilty conscience to the effect that your mom would want you to clear her name, and so on.
So even though you may not be legally responsible, I wouldn't be surprised if you or your family members got a call one day about the billing.
It sounds like you want to protect the property from a forced sale. In all likelihood, the most that will happen is that a lien will be placed on the property and the bill will be paid upon sale or ownership transfer.
Still, if your mother's finances can stand it, I suggest that you contact the nursing home and work out a payment plan.
Debt collection costs everyone something, so they should be willing to work with you to establish a reasonable payback arrangement.
Debt Adviser
Steve
Bucci