Structured Family Caregiving Georgia: How to Get Paid to Care for an Elderly Parent

You quit your job to take care of your mother full-time. You moved into her house, manage her medications, help her bathe and dress, coordinate her doctor appointments, and handle her bills. Your siblings contribute nothing. And you're watching your savings disappear.

Georgia's Structured Family Caregiving (SFC) program pays family caregivers a daily stipend of approximately $67 to $80 — roughly $1,987 to $2,400 per month — to provide live-in care for an eligible parent. The payments are completely tax-free at the federal level.

But qualifying requires navigating the legal authority question first, because the wrong type of authority disqualifies you entirely.

How Much SFC Pays

The SFC stipend is a daily payment that varies based on the assessed care tier:

• Lower care tier: Approximately $67/day ($1,987/month)
• Higher care tier: Approximately $80/day ($2,400/month)

The tier is determined by your parent's functional assessment score — how much help they need with activities of daily living like bathing, dressing, toileting, transferring, and eating.

These payments are classified as "difficulty-of-care" payments under IRS Notice 2014-7 and Internal Revenue Code § 131(c). Because you and your parent share a household, the stipend is completely exempt from federal income tax. The SFC provider agency reports these as non-taxable wages on your Form W-2.

Who Can Be the Paid Caregiver

SFC is available to most family members, but Georgia Medicaid policy explicitly disqualifies three categories:

• Spouses of the care recipient
• Parents of a minor-child care recipient
• Court-appointed legal guardians or conservators of the care recipient

Adult children, siblings, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and in-laws are all eligible to serve as the paid caregiver.

The Guardianship Trap

Here's the critical detail most families miss: if you go to probate court and get appointed as your parent's legal guardian, you are permanently disqualified from receiving SFC payments.

This creates a dangerous paradox. If your parent loses cognitive capacity and you seek legal authority through the court system, the very authority that lets you manage their affairs also blocks you from receiving the caregiver stipend.

The alternative — securing a durable power of attorney while your parent still has capacity — preserves your SFC eligibility. An agent under a POA is not a court-appointed guardian, so the exclusion rule doesn't apply. You get the legal authority you need without triggering the SFC disqualification.

This is one of the strongest practical arguments for getting a POA signed before the capacity window closes. The difference between a POA and guardianship isn't just $5,000 in court costs — it's up to $2,400 per month in ongoing caregiver income.

Eligibility Requirements

For Your Parent (the Care Recipient)

Your parent must:

1. Meet Nursing Facility Level of Care — significant impairment in at least two activities of daily living, severe cognitive impairment requiring continuous supervision, or a combination that would otherwise require nursing home placement
2. Be enrolled in a Medicaid waiver — either the Community Care Services Program (CCSP) or the SOURCE waiver
3. Meet Medicaid financial eligibility — individual asset limit of $2,000, and gross monthly income at or below the $2,982 Special Income Limit (or with a Miller Trust to route excess income)

For You (the Caregiver)

You must:

1. Live in the same household as your parent — SFC requires a shared residence
2. Pass a background check through the SFC provider agency
3. Not be your parent's spouse, parent, or court-appointed guardian/conservator
4. Be willing to work with the SFC provider agency for training, care plan development, and periodic oversight

How to Enroll

Step 1: Contact the Aging and Disability Resource Connection

Call Georgia's Empowerline (1-866-552-4464) or your local Area Agency on Aging to request a functional assessment. This is the gateway to all Medicaid waiver services.

Step 2: Complete the Functional Assessment

An AAA registered nurse or case manager conducts a 2-to-3-hour in-home evaluation using the standardized DCH assessment instrument. They evaluate ADLs, IADLs, cognitive status, behavioral health, and medical complexity.

Step 3: Apply for CCSP or SOURCE Waiver

If your parent meets Nursing Facility Level of Care, they can be enrolled in either the CCSP or SOURCE waiver program. Both offer SFC as a service option.

Be aware that CCSP maintains waitlists that can range from months to years in high-population counties. SOURCE typically has shorter wait times because provider sites receive monthly capitation payments that incentivize faster enrollment.

Step 4: Request SFC Through a Provider Agency

Once enrolled in the waiver, request SFC as a service. You'll be connected with a state-contracted SFC provider agency (such as Careforth or Passion to Care) that handles:

• Caregiver onboarding and training
• Background check processing
• Care plan development
• Monthly stipend payments
• Ongoing oversight and support

From waiver approval to first SFC stipend typically takes 45 to 90 days.

The Legal Authority Foundation

SFC enrollment requires someone to manage your parent's Medicaid application, Miller Trust (if needed), and ongoing waiver paperwork. If your parent has capacity, they can manage this themselves or sign a POA naming you as agent.

If they've lost capacity and you don't have a POA, you're stuck in the guardianship-SFC paradox described above — and the solution may require creative alternatives like having a different family member serve as guardian while you serve as the paid SFC caregiver.

The Georgia Power of Attorney & Guardianship Kit includes a complete SFC enrollment guide, the guardianship trap avoidance strategy, and the waiver application checklist that walks you through the CCSP and SOURCE enrollment process step by step.

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