Marie Kondo, an organizing consultant, has taken the world by storm with her two-step approach to tidying up in her best-selling book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. First, she encourages people to one-by-one hold in their hands everything they own. Once in…
Family disputes often arise in the estate administration process. Especially if there is money at stake, a disgruntled family member or other interested person may be unhappy with his or her inheritance, or lack thereof. A personal representative of an estate or trust may be forced to deal with a…
What happens to online accounts when you die? Digital identity is defined broadly and may include a person’s email accounts, online financial accounts, cloud accounts, digital music accounts, blogs, social networking identities, and digital files. Digital files are not limited to data files but also include photos, audio, and video…
Entering into a nursing home or other residential skilled care facility can be hard enough on a beloved older family member without having to worry about having to leave that facility and moved into another one. Unfortunately, this is a reality all too many seniors face these days as nursing…
One of the biggest anxieties many Americans may face is entering into a nursing home or other skilled residential care facility at some point in their lives. Not only does residency in a nursing home mean less autonomy, but also potentially pay a tremendous financial price. Depending on the location,…
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released a “Dear State Medicaid Director” letter highlighting ten opportunities for states to better serve individuals dually eligible for Medicare both and Medicaid. The letter states that these these opportunities are newly available to states through Medicare rulemaking or other CMS…
The Internal Revenue Service recently issued a notice to people with disabilities who are employed that for the first time they can now deposit extra money into their ABLE accounts without losing Social Security, Medicaid, or other government benefits. Annual contributions to ABLE accounts are currently capped at $15,000 but…
With the skyrocketing costs of medical care and nursing homes, few people can afford to pay out of pocket costs to live in a long term care facility in their later years and most will eventually need to qualify for Medicaid to do so. Medicaid has essentially become the default…
Having a last will and testament is something that every single person needs to have, regardless of how substantial or modest they feel their estate may be. This because a last will and testament does much more than spell out who receives what part of an estate. A last will…
Authorities across the country are warning of new scams targeting elderly Social Security over the phone, where individuals claiming to be government representatives try to collect sensitive information under the guise of a computer glitch causing issues with benefits. The Social Security Administration has made it very clear that under…