Articles Posted in Elder Law

Few people realize that nursing homes can file for guardianship over their elderly or disabled residents in order to collect on unpaid debts. Even fewer experts have done research on how often nursing homes initiate proceedings or track their progress through the courts. However, what research has been completed on nursing home guardianships show that not only does the practice happen often, but it seems to be increasing in use.

Nursing Home Guardianship Statistics

The Brookdale Center of Healthy Aging and Longevity has been researching how often these types of cases occur in the state of New York. While it has not released its full report, the Center has stated that its research found that between the years 2002 and 2012, nursing homes accounted for over twelve percent of all guardianship cases in Manhattan. Outside of the city, guardianship petitions by nursing homes over their residents are also a significant percentage of the court requests. Overall, estimates show that as many as two-thirds of all guardianship proceedings across the country are petitioned by an institution or government entity.

In cases of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and other issues with cognition, studies have shown that the ability to perform simple math problems and handling financial matters are often the first skills that slip away. Equally important is the research that shows that as people age, even elders that do not have issues with cognition may reach the point where making financial decisions can become incredibly challenging.

Seniors and Financial Skills

The issue of seniors handling their own financial affairs is significant in this day and age. Currently, there are 44.7 million people in the United States that are 65 years old or older, and they account for fourteen percent of the overall population. In a mere ten years, that number will skyrocket to around 66 million people, and this age group has trillions of dollars in wealth. Unfortunately, many seniors are left to manage their financial affairs on their own, despite losing the ability to do so.

With millions of Baby Boomers reaching retirement age and beyond without any type of plan, many believe that it is too late to begin planning for elder care. Others have unnecessarily spent tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in care and other needs because of the lack of an elder law plan. These are some of the most common misconceptions regarding elder law planning as well as how you or your loved one can avoid them.

It Is Too Late to Plan

For single or married elders, one of the most common and most devastating misconceptions about elder law planning is that it is too late. For seniors that are about to go into nursing home care or are already a resident, most have been informed of the five year look-back period for Medicaid and believe that there is nothing that can be done.

There are more than 44 million people in the United States currently acting as a caregiver for an elderly or disabled loved one, and they devote a significant amount of time, money, and energy to the endeavor. According to researchers over at the Rand Corp. think tank, the informal cost of elder care in the United States that caregivers pay out of their own pocket is more than $522 billion every year and over 30 billion hours of labor. The personal and opportunity costs on caregivers are unfortunately being ignored, and it is causing serious problems for caregivers across the country.

Informal Costs of Elder Care

The Rand Corp. came to this amount by calculating the cost of unpaid work that caregivers perform for their elderly loved ones in addition to the opportunity cost of caregivers, calculated as “paychecks that could be pocketed if the caregivers were working and not taking elders to the doctor, monitoring their health and helping them with daily activities.” In total, the $522 billion spent on elder care every year by caregivers is more than the entirety of federal spending on Medicare in 2013.

Japan is facing a unique problem in its prison systems: it cannot persuade people to leave. The country has one of the highest proportions of elderly convicts in the world, and crimes committed by this cross-section of the population have quadrupled over the last twenty years. Over twenty percent of all prisoners in Japan are over the age of sixty years old, and the country is facing an issue about what to do with their elderly convicts.

Reasons for Elderly Prison Population

The costs of healthcare in Japan are increasing rapidly, and elderly prisoners face better living conditions in addition to better healthcare than they would if they were to be released. Japan is trying to reduce the number of homeless seniors by more than thirty percent by the time that they host the summer Olympic Games in 2020, but many prefer the government-subsidized life behind bars.

In Citrus County, Florida, more than one-third of the residents are senior citizens which is one of the highest rates in the country. However, in just fifteen years over one-quarter of the state will be 65 years old or older. Seeing how Citrus County operates now is giving policy makers and researchers a glimpse into the future of how the entire country will look in just a couple of decades.

A Look at Citrus County

Billboards across the county advertise home health care services, and health care is the dominating labor force for people still working. In addition, lawyers and doctors make house calls, and elderly citizens that can still get around use the county minivan system to be transported to and from the store.

In late February, the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) issued guidelines to financial institutions located within the state regarding prevention of elder financial exploitation. The guidelines were issued to remind banks and other lending institutions that they are allowed to report possible instances of elder financial exploitation to New York’s Adult Protective Services (APS) in addition to outlining the best practices used to identify, investigate, and report instances of elder financial abuse to the authorities.

Federal and State Reporting Law

While not mandated, DFS strongly recommended that financial institutions report any suspected elder financial abuse to APS. A joint task force of the federal OCC and FDIC released their own report in 2013 that clarified that it is not a violation of state or federal law to report suspected elder financial abuse to the relevant authorities.

In January, the Department of Veterans Affairs proposed new regulations regarding when and how a veteran is entitled to the VA pension. The proposed regulations have sparked considerable controversy and outrage over the potential penalties involved with making gifts and eligibility for the pension program.

VA Pension Program

The Department of Veterans Affairs established the VA pension as a way to help veterans and their families once a person has retired from the military. It provides tax-free, supplemental income through the pension program. Additional benefits through the pension program called “Aid and Attendance Benefits” are also offered to veterans who are unable to perform daily living activities, such as bathing, eating, dressing, and so forth. One of the main purposes of the Aid and Attendance benefits is to help veterans offset the high costs of nursing home care.

Two weeks after major surgeries, medical treatments, and life-saving procedures a doctor found his patient’s advance directive in his medical chart. Suffering from dementia and unable to communicate, the patient was unable to tell his doctors about the document that stated “he wanted comfort care only, no heroics.” This story illustrates one of a number of growing problems that medical professionals have with advance directives.

Advance Directives and Living Wills

Advance directives, which commonly include living wills and advance healthcare proxies, dictate the wishes of a person’s future care. A living will is used to communicate which treatments and procedures you would like performed in the case that you are unable to communicate them yourself. It is most commonly known for dictating whether a person wishes to be resuscitated in life threatening situations.