Are home health aides a deductible medical expense

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
May 31, 2019
1 reply
7 views

My mother in law has 24-7 home health aides. Are their costs deductible on her return. They are not nurses, but do cooking, cleaning, transportation, and keep her safe (no unattended falls, proper nutrition, and assistance in toileting and hygiene). They follow a plan designed by the agency. Her doctor wrote a note requiring 24-7 care. So can the fees be processed in the medical expense area?

TurboTax Home & Biz Windows

Howard1948

Level 7

From IRS Publication 502 re medical expenses:

Qualified long-term care services are necessary diagnostic, preventive, therapeutic, curing, treating, mitigating, rehabilitative services, and maintenance and personal care services (defined later) that are:

Required by a chronically ill individual, and
Provided pursuant to a plan of care prescribed by a licensed health care practitioner.

Chronically ill individual. An individual is chronically ill if, within the previous 12 months, a licensed health care practitioner has certified that the individual meets either of the following descriptions.

He or she is unable to perform at least two activities of daily living without substantial assistance from another individual for at least 90 days, due to a loss of functional capacity. Activities of daily living are eating, toileting, transferring, bathing, dressing, and continence.
He or she requires substantial supervision to be protected from threats to health and safety due to severe cognitive impairment.

Maintenance and personal care services. Maintenance or personal care services is care which has as its primary purpose the providing of a chronically ill individual with needed assistance with his or her disabilities (including protection from threats to health and safety due to severe cognitive impairment).

LEM2017

Level 2

I have a similar question, but I cannot find enough information to find out how the amount you can deduct determined. I am assuming the entire amount cannot be deducted. My mother is 95, filing single. She was left with sufficient funds to cover the costs so she is, in essence, filing for herself so it is not a dependent / child. She cannot be left alone, and I work. How do we determine how much can be deducted? Is it a percentage of the total cost? I have found nothing that speaks to this.

VictoriaD75

Level 12

Generally, only the amount spent for nursing services is a medical expense. If the attendant also provides personal and household services, amounts paid to the attendant must be divided between the time spent performing household and personal services and the time spent for nursing services.

For example, because of your medical condition you pay a visiting nurse $300 per week for medical and household services. She spends 10% of her time doing household services such as washing dishes and laundry. You can include only $270 per week as medical expenses. The $30 (10% × $300) allocated to household services can't be included. However, certain maintenance or personal care services provided for qualified long-term care can be included in medical expenses. See Maintenance and personal care services under Long-Term Care, earlier.

Additionally, certain expenses for household services or for the care of a qualifying individual incurred to allow you to work may qualify for the child and dependent care credit. See Pub. 503.

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