Home › Family guides › The Family Caregiver Option

You are already doing the care. GAPP may pay you for it.

Under Georgia's Family Caregiver Option, a parent or relative of a GAPP-approved child can be hired and paid as an employee for their child's approved personal care hours.

Check eligibility Try the Path Finder

How it works

If your child is approved for GAPP personal care support, the person delivering those hours has to be employed by an approved agency. The Family Caregiver Option means that person can be you. You are hired as a W-2 employee of HeartPath, trained and credentialed, and paid on real payroll for the hours your child is authorized.

W-2, not a stipendYou are an employee. Taxes withheld, real pay stubs, weekly payroll.

We train and credential youAbout 40 hours of training. We guide you through it, and it is how you are qualified to be paid.

Background check requiredIncluding fingerprinting. This is a program requirement, not an agency preference.

It covers personal careNot skilled nursing. Nursing hours are delivered by a licensed RN or LPN.

What it does not cover

This pays for personal care support, not skilled nursing. If your child needs a nurse, a nurse provides those hours. Some families have both: authorized nursing hours delivered by an RN or LPN, and personal care hours delivered by the parent.

Who is eligible

Your child must be approved for GAPP personal care support hours.
You must be able to become a W-2 employee, complete about 40 hours of training and pass a background check with fingerprinting.
Foster parents are not eligible for the Family Caregiver Option.
It is less commonly approved for very young children, because reviewers expect care before that age to be mostly medical. That is an approval pattern, not a written rule, and skilled nursing has no such pattern.

One thing worth checking first

GAPP services themselves are not income and do not count against your child's SSI. But wages you earn as a paid caregiver are earned income, and household earned income can affect a child's SSI. Call your SSI caseworker before you start. We would rather you know that up front than find out on a benefits letter.

Find out in two minutes

The Caregiver Pay Check asks a few questions about your child and about you, and tells you honestly whether this looks like a fit. Nothing is submitted until you choose to.

Ready when you are.

Tell us about your child and a real person will walk you through what comes next. No cost, no obligation.

Check eligibility Call 678-459-2590

Keep reading

HeartPath Home Care is an approved provider for the Georgia Pediatric Program. We are not a government agency, and this page is not an official publication of the Georgia Department of Community Health or Georgia Medicaid. It is a plain-language guide for families. Eligibility for GAPP, Medicaid and Katie Beckett is determined solely by Georgia Medicaid and the state agencies that administer them, based on your child's documented medical needs. Program rules and figures change.