What Are Consumer Directed Services?
Comprehensive Support for Independent Living In Missouri
Missouri State Medicaid’s Consumer Directed Services program offers a way for certain family members to assist their aging parents at home. Instead of paying for caregivers to assist your mom, you can get paid to help her with ADLs and IADLs. How does it work?
Consumer Directed Services provides payments to qualified family caregivers who step in to help a family member. If your mom needs help around the home in order to maintain independence, she could hire you to help. If she qualifies for Medicaid, she likely qualifies for Consumer Directed Services, though there are a few criteria she must meet.
Understand What ADLs and IADLs Entail
To qualify for Consumer Directed Services, your mom must require help with activities of daily living (ADLs) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs). These are tasks that relate to your ability to take care of yourself.
ADLs include:
- Bathing and showering
- Dressing
- Eating
- Grooming and hygiene
- Toileting
- Walking and transferring
Those tasks are necessary for your health and safety. Other tasks are similar, but they’re not always related to health. IADLs include:
- Arranging transportation or driving to area businesses and addresses
- Cleaning the home
- Doing laundry
- Making beds and changing sheets and towels
- Paying bills and keeping track of finances
- Planning and cooking meals and snacks
- Running errands
- Scheduling appointments
- Shopping for clothing and household necessities
- Taking medications as required and scheduling refills
If your mom cannot do these tasks without help, she needs home care services. If she’s on Missouri State Medicaid, she may qualify for Consumer Directed Services, which allows her to hire the personal care aide of her choosing. She can’t hire her spouse, but she can hire her adult children.
There are exceptions. If your mom chose you as her power of attorney, you cannot be her paid caregiver. If she has Alzheimer’s disease, she will not qualify for Consumer Directed Services.
General Criteria for Consumer Directed Services
To qualify for Consumer Directed Services, your mom must be able to direct her care and live independently with help. She has to meet the definition of physical disability. Her needs must exceed the cost of facility care in a nursing home. For example, if she has kidney disease, she’d likely qualify.
An expert will assess your mom’s care needs and authorize the number of hours of care she needs. You’ll be paid the going rate times the number of hours that are authorized for your mom.
Getting Started
How do you get started? Talk to a specialist in Consumer Directed Services. It can be a little overwhelming to gather the required paperwork from her doctors and financial statements. Work with an expert to ensure you don’t overlook anything. After that, you’ll fill out an application and arrange an assessment of your mom’s care needs.
