Can I deduct the cost of a Group Home?

[dkatzfey]

My parents live in a group home in AZ because my mother had a stroke and can not walk and needs a lift to get her in and out of bed.  My father needs someone to draw up his insulin and bathing and fixing meals.  They have 2 full time caregivers.  They pay $3,000 a month each.  Can I use this amount as deduction?

[MichaelMc · Accepted solution]

Provided your parents are your dependents, you can include in medical expenses amounts paid for qualified long-term care services. You can also include medical expenses you paid for an individual that would have been your dependent except that:

1. He or she received gross income of $4,050 or more in 2016,
2. He or she filed a joint return for 2016, or
3. You, or your spouse if filing jointly, could be claimed as a dependent on someone else's 2016 return. 

The following is taken from IRS Pub. 502 Medical and Dental Expenses.

"Qualified Long-Term Care Services

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:

1. Required by a chronically ill individual, and
2. 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.

1. 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.

2. 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)."