How to Get Paid to Care for a Parent in Florida (2026): The PDO and More

ElderHearth offers general information, not financial, tax, or legal advice. Florida Medicaid long-term care is administered through managed care plans, so confirm the details with the Florida Department of Elder Affairs (the Elder Helpline, 1-800-963-5337) or your parent's plan.

If you are caring for an aging parent in Florida, you can often be paid for it through the state's Medicaid long-term care program. The route to get paid to care for a parent in Florida is the Participant-Directed Option (PDO) within Statewide Medicaid Managed Care Long-Term Care (SMMC LTC). The PDO lets your parent act as the employer and hire their own caregiver, and an adult child can be that caregiver. Which other relatives a plan will enroll, a spouse in particular, is set by your parent's long-term care plan rather than by a rule we can point you to, so that one goes on the list of questions to ask them. This guide covers how the PDO works, who qualifies, what it pays, and how to apply. Florida Medicaid's Participant Directed Option lets your parent hire a family caregiver, and Florida's SMMC long-term care program pays that family caregiver, an adult child included.

How to get paid to care for a parent in Florida: the Participant-Directed Option

The Participant-Directed Option (PDO) is the self-direction track inside Florida's SMMC Long-Term Care program. Under it, your parent becomes the employer of record: they choose the caregiver, train and schedule them, and approve timesheets, while their managed care plan sets the pay rate and issues payment.

Under the PDO, an adult child can be hired as the paid caregiver, signing a work agreement and passing a background check like any other worker. Your parent can live in their own home or in a family member's home.

Whether a spouse can be hired is a question to put to the plan rather than take from anyone's article, this one included. States differ sharply on it, and the differences are not intuitive: Kentucky names a spouse outright, New Jersey lists one among the people a participant may hire, while Ohio allows it only when no other willing and able provider exists. Florida runs the PDO through your parent's managed care plan, and the plan is the party that can say which relatives it will enroll. Ask before you plan a household budget around the answer.

The PDO is offered through Florida's long-term care plans, so the plan your parent is enrolled with (Humana, Sunshine Health, Aetna Better Health, Simply Healthcare, or Florida Community Care) is also the one that administers it.

What the PDO pays

Under the PDO, the managed care plan sets the fee schedule and makes the payments, and your parent has some say within that budget. The number of authorized hours comes from an assessment of your parent's needs.

That means the figure lives with the plan rather than in a published statewide table, so the useful call is to the plan's long-term care line, and the useful question is two-part: what does it pay a participant-directed worker for personal care, and how many hours has my parent been authorized for. Multiply those, not the first number you are given.

Who qualifies

Eligibility turns on your parent:

• Your parent must qualify for Florida Medicaid long-term care, which for 2026 generally means income at or below about $2,982 a month and countable assets under $2,000 for an individual. That income figure is three times the federal SSI benefit rate, and the Social Security Administration published the rate itself: "The maximum Federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI) monthly payment amounts for 2026 under title XVI of the Act will be $994 for an eligible individual". Three times $994 is $2,982, so the arithmetic is yours to check rather than ours to assert.
• They must be assessed as needing a nursing-facility level of care, through the state's screening process.
• A waitlist can apply. Florida's long-term care program has, at times, had a waiting list, so it is worth getting on it early.
• You, the caregiver, complete the PDO work agreement and background check.

How to apply in Florida

The process runs through the state's aging network and a managed care plan:

1. Call the Elder Helpline at 1-800-963-5337 (the Florida Department of Elder Affairs) to start a screening for long-term care services and get on the list.
2. Complete the assessment (CARES) that determines whether your parent needs a nursing-facility level of care.
3. Enroll in an SMMC Long-Term Care plan and tell the plan you want the Participant-Directed Option.
4. Set up as the caregiver, signing the PDO work agreement and passing the background check so your hours can be paid.

Other ways to get paid to care for a parent in Florida

The PDO is the main path, but not the only one:

• VA programs, if your parent is a veteran, can pay a family caregiver through Veteran-Directed Care or the Program of Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers.
• A personal care agreement, if your parent can pay from their own savings, sets the hours, duties, and pay in writing, which matters for family clarity, taxes, and any future Medicaid application.

For the full national picture of every program and how they compare, see our main guide to how to get paid to care for an elderly parent. If the stairs are becoming a problem too, we cover stair lift funding in Florida separately.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I get paid to care for my parent in Florida? Often, yes. The main way is the Participant-Directed Option (PDO) within Florida's Medicaid long-term care program, which lets your parent hire a family caregiver such as an adult child. Your parent must qualify for Medicaid long-term care and be assessed as needing a nursing-facility level of care.

Can a family member be paid to care for a parent in Florida? An adult child, yes, on signing the work agreement and passing a background check. For a spouse, ask your parent's long-term care plan directly. Rules on spouses vary more between states than anything else in this area, and Florida administers the PDO through the plan rather than through a published statewide rule we can point you to.

How much do family caregivers get paid in Florida? Your parent's managed care plan sets the fee schedule and pays the caregiver, with the authorized hours based on the assessed level of need, so the figure comes from the plan rather than from a statewide table.

Does Florida pay family caregivers outside of the PDO? Yes, in some cases. The VA pays family caregivers of eligible veterans, and a private personal care agreement lets a parent pay you from their own funds. Florida does not have a state paid family leave program.

Where to start

The fastest first step is to call the Elder Helpline at 1-800-963-5337 to begin the long-term care screening and get on the list early, since a waitlist can apply, then ask your plan about the Participant-Directed Option. If your parent is a veteran, look at the VA programs in parallel. Setting up to get paid to care for a parent in Florida takes some patience, but it is a real way to keep aging in place within reach.

If you want to tell someone how it is going, you are welcome to write to us.

Sources

• Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, Statewide Medicaid Managed Care, the program the Participant-Directed Option sits within.
• Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, Statewide Medicaid Managed Care.
• U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Caregiver Support Program.