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Medicare pays for dementia respite careThrough the Medicare GUIDE Program

Medicare may pay for a trained caregiver to stay with your loved one while you take a well-deserved break.

GUIDE is a Medicare program for people living with dementia at home. Every enrolled family gets a dedicated dementia care navigator and 24/7 support, and families further along in the disease also receive 20 covered respite visits a year, all at no additional cost.

Most eligible families never hear it exists. Caring Companions is an approved GUIDE respite provider in southwest Missouri.

Check eligibility →

Two minutes, nine questions. Or call (417) 234-8494 and we will do it with you.

What it covers

1
Respite careTwenty four-hour visits a year, 80 hours, delivered by our caregivers and billed to Medicare rather than to you. Medicare decides who qualifies for these hours based on how far the dementia has progressed and how much strain the caregiver is under.
2
A dementia care navigatorA trained person who calls you every month. Education, resources, help finding things, someone to talk to who has seen this before.
3
A 24/7 support lineDementia does not keep business hours. Urgent questions, behavior nobody prepared you for, any hour of the night.
20 visits

four hours each, 80 hours a year, for families who meet Medicare's criteria

4-hour

segments, scheduled around you

July 1

hours reset every year, and they do not roll over

What this is actually for

Medicare built GUIDE because families caring for someone with dementia at home tend to run out of road. The caregiver gets sick, or exhausted, or has to go back to work, and a person who could have stayed home for another two years ends up in a facility instead. The program pays for the three things that usually break first.

You are worn out

Respite is not a luxury and it is not admitting defeat. It is the afternoon you get to go to your own doctor, or your daughter's wedding, or just sleep. Families who take regular breaks keep someone home years longer than families who wait until they collapse.

Nobody told you what happens next

Most families are handed a diagnosis and sent home. The care navigator is the person who tells you what the next stage looks like, which paperwork matters, and which of the things you are worrying about are actually worth worrying about.

It is 2am and she will not settle

The 24/7 line exists for exactly that. Not an answering service that takes a message, a clinical line that can talk you through it and get a telehealth visit going if it needs one.

Who qualifies

Two things decide most of it: the kind of Medicare she has, and where she lives. Medicare changed the residence rule in June 2026, so if somebody told you last year that assisted living was fine, that is no longer true. Check it yourself below, or call us and we will look at it with you.

Rules it out

  • A Medicare Advantage plan (Humana, Aetna, UnitedHealthcare, Anthem, any plan name)
  • Assisted living, memory care, a group home, or board and care
  • Living in a nursing home
  • Enrolled in Medicare hospice
  • Enrolled in PACE
  • No dementia or memory impairment diagnosis

Perfectly fine

  • Traditional or Original Medicare
  • Living at home, alone or with family
  • A house, apartment, or condominium
  • Independent living, where care is not part of the lease
  • Palliative care (this is not hospice)
  • Having Medicaid or VA benefits as well

Check eligibility

Nine questions about your loved one. Nothing is submitted to Medicare and nothing happens until you ask us to.

A real person here reads it, usually the same day. We will tell you honestly whether it is worth pursuing. No cost, and no obligation to use us for anything.

How it goes from here

The honest version, including the part where you wait.

1. We talk

Free, no obligation, in your home or on the phone. We confirm the eligibility questions and answer whatever you want to ask.

2. The assessment

We come out and complete a comprehensive assessment with you and your loved one, then submit it. Assessments go to Medicare on Fridays and approval comes back the following Tuesday of the next week, so plan on two to three weeks.

3. Care starts

We do not make you wait on paperwork. If you need help this week, we start this week and let the Medicare side catch up behind it.

Good to know before you count on it

The respite hours do not roll over. Unused hours expire on June 30 and a fresh set becomes available July 1, so a family that saves them all for a rainy day tends to lose them. We would rather you use them steadily through the year. We can only bill Medicare once GUIDE enrollment is approved, and how many hours are available follows Medicare's rules rather than ours.

Questions families actually ask

Does every family get the respite hours?
No, and we would rather say so plainly. Everyone accepted into GUIDE gets the care navigator and the 24/7 line. The respite hours go to families where the dementia has progressed to a certain stage and the caregiver is carrying a heavy enough load, which Medicare measures with two standard assessments during the visit: one that stages the dementia and one that asks the caregiver how they are holding up. If your loved one is early in the disease, you may be enrolled without respite hours at first and become eligible for them later as things change. We will tell you which side of that line you look like you are on before you commit to anything.
Is this really free?
The GUIDE services are covered by Medicare, so there is no bill to you for them. What it is not is unlimited free care. The respite benefit is $2,625 a year, which at the Medicare rate for our area is twenty four-hour visits. If you need more care than that, and most families eventually do, the rest is regular private-pay care and we will tell you exactly what it costs before you commit to anything.
Does this replace her doctor?
No. Nothing changes about her doctor, her neurologist, or anyone else on her team. GUIDE adds a care navigator and a support line alongside them. Her regular care goes on exactly as it is.
She has a Humana plan. Can we switch?
Medicare Advantage plans are not eligible for GUIDE, and we would not tell you to change plans over it. Switching back to traditional Medicare has real consequences for her other coverage and it is a decision to make with a licensed Medicare counselor, not with a home care agency. Call us anyway. There are other things we can do for you.
My father is in assisted living or memory care. Does he qualify?
Not anymore, and we are sorry to be the ones to say it. Medicare amended the GUIDE agreement in July 2026 to limit the program to people living in a private residence or in independent living. Assisted living, memory care, group homes, board and care homes, and similar communities are no longer eligible, and that took effect on June 1, 2026. It is a real loss for those families and it was not the providers' decision. If your father is already enrolled, do not do anything, his medical group handles the transition and you should not ask to be unenrolled. Call us either way, because he may still qualify for other kinds of help and we will tell you what those are.
She lives in a retirement community. Is that independent living or assisted living?
The line is what her lease pays for, not what the building calls itself. If she has her own apartment and the community does not provide personal care, medication management, or supervision as part of her residency agreement, that is independent living and she can qualify. If any of that care is included in what she pays them, it is a residential care community and she cannot. Plenty of places use both words in their marketing, so it is worth reading the agreement. Give us the community name and we will help you work it out.
How long does it take?
Assessments go to Medicare on Fridays and alignment comes back the following Tuesday of the next week, so plan on two to three weeks. That is exactly why we would rather start care now than have you sitting at home waiting on a form.
What is the catch?
The real one: GUIDE covers a set amount, and people sometimes fall out of the program without much warning, usually because they go on hospice, move to a nursing home, or switch to a Medicare Advantage plan. When that happens, visits after that date are not covered anymore. So we ask every family to sign a service agreement saying that anything Medicare does not cover is billable to them. We are not trying to catch anybody out. We are trying to make sure nobody opens a surprise bill.
Do we have to use Caring Companions?
No. You can be aligned to GUIDE and use a different respite provider, or use adult day services instead. We would obviously like to be the ones, and we think we are worth choosing, but the program belongs to you and not to us.
What if we are outside Springfield?
We cover Springfield and the surrounding communities. If you are further out, you may still be eligible for GUIDE and we can point you to the people who can align you. Call and ask, it costs you nothing to find out.

If you work with families

Discharge planners, memory clinics, home health, elder law, social workers. Most professionals have not heard of GUIDE yet, which means your dementia families are sitting on a Medicare benefit nobody has told them about. We are an approved respite provider and we are glad to walk your team through who qualifies, at no cost and with nothing to sign.

Get the fifteen-minute version

Call (417) 234-8494 or email info@mo-care.com and we will come to you. We will bring one-pagers your families can take home.

Caring Companions is a contracted GUIDE partner organization delivering respite services and comprehensive assessments in southwest Missouri.

You do not have to figure out whether you qualify by yourself.

Answer nine questions here, or call and we will go through them with you in about five minutes. Either way you will know where you stand.

Check eligibility Or call (417) 234-8494