BTHE BARATELLI INSTITUTE · Mentoring at Scale
FOR FAMILIES IN AN EXTENDED-STAY CARE SITUATION

Three months living in a hospital town. Here's the real number.

Special Needs Families might be free. The rest is not. Rental car or rideshare, groceries or hospital cafeteria, school continuity for the patient, childcare for the kids back home, and the bills that don't pause because you're away. This is the operational budget no one hands you on day one.

Monthly burn
All-in
Income delta
Per month
Total stay
Real number
Buffer
3-month reserve
YOUR PLAN
1
Stay parameters
2
Housing
3
Food & daily
4
Transportation
5
Kids at home
6
Income & results
STAGE 1 OF 6

Stay parameters

Defaults reflect a family of four with two children, one parent accompanying a school-age patient for a 4-month treatment stay in a major US medical city.

For context only. Doesn't change the math — but you'll want this on your paperwork.
Total expected duration away from home. Plan for the realistic case, not the optimistic one.
Patient + accompanying family. Affects food and (sometimes) lodging.
Comma-separated. Drives schooling and childcare lines. Example: 8, 12.
School-year stays trigger different childcare needs than summer stays.
Read before you start. The trap with long-stay budgets is averaging. Month 1 is heavy (initial flights, setup, post-op intensity). Month 2-3 is the steady state. Month 4+ is when "small" lines compound — laundry, eating out because cooking in a hospital house got old, the second rental-car extension, the unplanned grandparent flights. This tool models the steady-state monthly burn and then trues it up against the full duration. Plan to have at least 3 months of all-in burn in liquid reserves before the stay begins.
STAGE 2 OF 6

Housing — here and back home

Two households now. The one in the treatment city, and the one back home that doesn't stop billing you. Most families plan for the first and forget the second.

In the treatment city
Special Needs Families (limb-specialty hospitality, West Palm Beach) and Ronald McDonald House offer free or nominal stays for qualifying families. Always apply — even if uncertain you'll qualify.
Quantum/RMH: $0-25 suggested donation. Extended-stay: $90-180. Hotel: $140-280. Furnished month-to-month apartment: $2,400-4,500/month ÷ 30.
$
Apartment / rental lease: $150-350. Hotel / Quantum / RMH: $0 (bundled). WiFi extra if you're working remotely.
$
Coin laundry, wash-and-fold service, or apartment in-unit. Six loads a week for a hospital-stay family is realistic. $40-180/month.
$
Back home (still owed)
Doesn't pause. Some families consider short-term subletting; the operational complexity rarely covers the savings during a medical stay.
$
Electric, gas, water, internet, phone. Even with the family away, baseline runs $200-500/mo.
$
Annualize and divide by 12. Goes on the page even if escrowed in your mortgage payment.
$
Lawn care, pool service, pet boarding/sitting, occasional handyman visits. With one parent home, some of these expand.
$
STAGE 3 OF 6

Food & daily expenses

At day 10, eating out is convenient. By day 60, it's a $1,200 month. Hospital cafeterias help. Quantum/RMH communal kitchens help more. The honest comparison is below.

In the treatment city
Two adults + one school-age child eating-in: $150-220/week typical. Quantum/RMH communal kitchen often subsidizes groceries.
$
Going out for treats, hospital cafeteria when inpatient, food delivery on hard days. Honest pre-stay: $80-200/week.
$
During post-op recovery the parent is in the hospital 12+ hours a day. Cafeteria + vending + bottled water adds up. $150-350/month.
$
Healing-diet groceries, protein supplements, pediatric vitamins. $100-300/month typical.
$
Back home (other parent + other kids)
Groceries + occasional takeout for the solo parent and remaining children. Be honest — solo-parent fatigue means more takeout than usual.
$
Two households now. Both need toilet paper, shampoo, OTC pharmacy items. Total across both: $150-280/mo.
$
STAGE 4 OF 6

Transportation

Long-term rental, rideshare, or driving down — the math flips at different stay lengths. We'll show the all-in for what you chose, plus what the alternative would have cost.

In the treatment city
Rental car typically wins for stays of 4+ weeks. Rideshare wins for short stays + everything-walkable hospitals. Driving down requires a healthy departure.
Long-term rental: $400-600/week all-in (incl. insurance). Rideshare: $70-180/week. Own car: $0 base + fuel + parking.
$
Hospital runs, grocery runs, occasional sanity drives. $80-220/mo for short hops, more if treatment city is spread out.
$
$8-25 per visit × visit frequency. Many hospitals offer patient-family parking validation — ask the front desk.
$
Trips home, family visits
Round trips for the accompanying parent + visits from the other parent or grandparents.
Round-trip airfare or fuel for a long drive + a hotel overnight if needed.
$
STAGE 5 OF 6

Children at home + school continuity

The kids who didn't travel still need transport to school, dinner on the table, and time with the away-parent. The patient still needs schooling. This is where the operational stress compounds.

Other children at home (not traveling)
Children NOT traveling. May be 0.
Solo parent solo = no paid childcare line but heavy productivity hit. Grandparent moves in = travel cost for them. Paid sitter = explicit monthly cost.
After-school care: $300-700/mo per child. Paid sitter (regular hours): $1,000-2,500/mo. Grandparent help: travel cost + groceries for them.
$
Sports, music, tutoring that continue. Keeping kids in their routines is the right call but it's a budget line.
$
Patient's schooling continuity
Homebound instruction is sometimes free through the home school district. Online curriculum (K12, Outschool) or in-person tutor adds cost.
$0 for district homebound, $200-600 for online curriculum + light tutoring, $800-1,800 for in-person private.
$
Communication & sanity
Two phone plans active, video-call subscriptions, maybe a streaming bundle to keep evenings sane. $80-180/mo above what you already had.
$
For the patient, the accompanying parent, or the other kids. Often the most important $200/mo a family spends during a stay.
$
STAGE 6 OF 6

Income during the stay & results

FMLA preserves the job. It does not preserve the paycheck. Short-term disability rarely covers caregivers. The income side of this ledger is often where the budget cracks.

Accompanying parent
Pre-tax salary of the parent traveling with the patient.
$
FMLA is unpaid but job-protected (US). Some employers offer paid caregiver leave (4-12 weeks, unadvertised). Remote work is the best case if your role allows.
Unpaid leave: 0%. Partial: 25-50%. Remote: 60-85%. Paid caregiver leave: 60-100%. Full: 100%.
%
If the patient is the employee AND has STD coverage, this often pays 50-70% of salary during medical leave. Leave at 0 if patient is a child / not employed.
$
Other parent (at home)
Pre-tax salary of the parent who remains home.
$
Other parent is typically working but at reduced capacity due to solo parenting + travel for visits. Realistic: 80-95%.
%
Cash on hand
What you could put on the table tomorrow without selling investments or borrowing. We'll compare this against the 3-month-buffer recommendation.
$
Combined federal + state effective rate. Default 22% is typical for a middle-class dual-income household.
%
WANT THE METHODOLOGY BEHIND THIS TOOL?
Read more in the Family Office Reference.
The tool gives you the answer. The guide gives you the argument — the case law, the worked examples, the negotiation playbook, the cross-check tables, the exception cases.
The methodology behind this calculator is in Catastrophic care planning of the reference guide.
Read more in the Family Office Reference → Browse all 22 guides
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