Can adult children be held liable for their parents' nursing home bills? The short answer is yes, but this usually only happens as a last resort and in situations when there has been little or no planning done, or the adult child completely disappears or stops communicating with the nursing home. Our firm's long-term care planners Kristin Daugherty and Tammy Zilske explain more about the Pennsylvania law that allows this, the relatively rare situations in which this may happen and how to avoid such a situation (it starts with having a plan for pay for long-term care costs, which is where we come in).