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When you’re caring for someone
For anyone in the United States looking after a parent, a partner, a relative or a friend who is older, ill or disabled. Where to start, who helps caregivers near them, how to get a break, what Medicare does and doesn’t pay for, how to keep your job, the papers to have in order, and the words to say when you call. You count in this too. One thing at a time.
A word with a dotted line under it, like this, opens its official definition, quoted from a U.S. government glossary.
Right now
- Someone is in danger or badly hurt? Call 911.
- Don’t know where to begin? Call or text the Eldercare Locator, 1-800-677-1116.
- A dementia question that can’t wait? The Alzheimer’s Association Helpline, 1-800-272-3900, any hour.
- At the end of your rope? Call or text 988, any hour.
More help
- An appointment coming up, theirs or yours? Appointment prep.
- A doctor without insurance? When you need a doctor and can’t pay.
- Bills, benefits and collectors? When the money runs out.
- Not enough food in the house? When you need food.
- A power of attorney, a guardianship, a benefits denial? When you need a lawyer and can’t pay.
- A call or a letter asking them for money? Is this a scam?
- Worried they may hurt themselves? Worried about someone.
- They are dying, or have died? When someone has died.
- Memory loss or dementia? When memory starts to slip.
- All our free tools and Get help now.
Other guides on this site that go with this page
Free to read. We chose these ourselves; no professional did. Each guide was written with AI and has not been reviewed by a professional. They are general information, not advice.
- Help as you get older: one number that finds help near you, staying in your own home, help paying for Medicare, and scams.
- When pain doesn’t go away: pain that has lasted for months: describing it so a doctor hears it, treatments that are not medicine, and what pain does to sleep and mood.
- When a medical bill is too much: what to check before you pay, the financial help nonprofit hospitals must offer, surprise bills, and debt collectors.
- When someone you love is in jail or prison: for the family and friends outside: finding where they are, calls, letters, sending money, visiting, and what to tell the children.
- After a death: the practical things: the forms after someone dies: death certificates, Social Security and survivor benefits, their debts, and the final tax return.
- When the doctor says cancer: a cancer diagnosis: the questions to ask, a second opinion, the fever during chemotherapy that is an emergency, paying for it, and free people to call.
- If an older person is being hurt: an older person who is being hurt, neglected or robbed: the signs, who takes a report, nursing homes, scams, and free people to call.
- When someone you love is dying: someone who is dying: hospice and palliative care, what Medicare pays for, keeping them comfortable, what you may see near the end, and what to say.
- When someone is missing: someone you cannot find, a child, a teenager, a person with dementia or an adult: the first hour, what to tell the police, and who to call.
- When you’re raising a relative’s child: raising a grandchild, niece, nephew, brother, sister or a friend’s child: legal custody, school and medical consent, money for the child, and help for you.
- When it’s COPD: COPD (emphysema and chronic bronchitis): when a flare-up is a 911 call, the breathing test, inhalers, rehab, oxygen and what Medicare pays.
- When it’s Parkinson’s: Parkinson’s disease: the signs, the diagnosis, the medicines and their side effects, and who to call.
- When it’s Long COVID: Long COVID: the symptoms, why tests can come back normal, getting ready for an appointment, work and disability, and children and school.
- When you have no ride to the doctor: Medicaid rides, what Medicare covers, VA rides and travel pay, paratransit, and who to call: when you have no ride to the doctor: the ride Medicaid covers and how to set it up, when Medicare pays for an ambulance, free rides and travel pay from VA, the federal paratransit rule, and who to call.
- When you can’t afford medical equipment: wheelchairs, walkers, oxygen and hospital beds, what Medicare and Medicaid cover, and where to borrow: when you can’t afford medical equipment: what Medicare counts as equipment, the question to ask a supplier first, how oxygen rental works, what Medicaid may not refuse outright, and the program in every state that lends and reuses devices.
- When you need help at home and can’t pay for it: home health care, aides, bathing and meals, what Medicare and Medicaid cover, and who to ask: when you need help at home and can’t pay for it: the home health care Medicare covers and the daily help it leaves out, the short deadline when an agency says your care is ending, what Medicaid must cover at home and may add, the VA programs, and the local agencies behind home-delivered meals.
- When someone needs a nursing home and you can’t pay for it: what Medicare covers, Medicaid, a spouse at home, being told to leave, and who to ask: when someone needs a nursing home and you can’t pay for it: the short stay Medicare covers and the long stay it does not, what Medicaid must cover, what is protected for a spouse at home, when a nursing home may make a resident leave, the VA homes, and who stands up for residents.
- Living on your own terms with a disability: Centers for Independent Living, leaving an institution, your right to live in the community, work, and savings: living on your own terms with a disability: the local Centers for Independent Living, the law against unnecessary segregation, who to ask about leaving an institution, the advocates who do not charge, the two work programs, and ABLE savings accounts.
- When it’s heart failure: when to call 911, symptoms, the ejection fraction number, medicines, the morning weigh-in, salt and fluid, and what to ask: heart failure: when it is a 911 call and when to call your provider, the ejection fraction number, the kinds of medicine, the morning weigh-in, and salt and fluid.
- When it’s high blood pressure: what the numbers mean, a very high reading and when to call 911, checking at home, medicines, salt and food, pregnancy, and what to ask: high blood pressure: what the two numbers mean, what to do with a very high reading and when it is a 911 call, how to get a true reading, the kinds of medicine, and salt.
This page and its wording were written with AI (Claude) for Scarlet Beast (our AI policy). The facts come from the government’s own pages (the Eldercare Locator and the Administration for Community Living, USAGov, the National Institute on Aging and Alzheimers.gov, Medicare.gov, the Department of Labor, the Department of Veterans Affairs, Social Security, the Justice Department and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) and from the sites of the Alzheimer’s Association, the State Health Insurance Assistance Programs, the National Adult Protective Services Association and the National Consumer Voice. The phone numbers were checked on those pages on October 1, 2026. Programs change, and most of them are run state by state, so check with the office where the person lives. Where we could not confirm something, such as a helpline’s hours, how much a program pays, or which states have paid family leave, the page says to ask and does not guess. This page saves nothing: no account, no cookies, nothing you tick is stored or sent, and no analytics (privacy). Scarlet Beast is not a government agency, a care provider or a law office. Found a mistake? Email [email protected].