Elder Law News

To make sure that your personal health care advocates can have access to your Protected Health Information (“PHI”)  and your treating health care personnel, it’s particularly important that you sign HIPAA authorization forms and put them into the chart at the hospital, clinic, rehab center, nursing home or doctor’s office. Our practice is to provide these forms when our...

Here at Fink Rosner Ershow-Levenberg, LLC, we have just celebrated two major milestones. October 1st 2015 marked the 20-year anniversary of when I “hung out my shingle” as an elder law attorney in Union. After ten years representing state agencies and having my new cases just handed to me, opening a private practice was part “jumping off the diving board” and part...

Here is a situation a client of mine encountered recently that I thought was worth sharing. The client gave me permission to quote her email verbatim. The parent had signed a Will some years ago leaving the estate equally to the 3 children. One provision said ” I direct that my 3 children obtain a joint appraisal of my coin collection. I then direct that the collection be sold to a...

Every day, families are struggling to care for their loved ones at home. The patient may be young with severe disabilities, special needs and nursing needs, or may be aging and unable to live alone due to dementia, confusion or physical weakness. The patient may be dependent on complex durable medical equipment such as  a ventilator, and may require frequent attention from trained attendants,...

Under the “doctrine of necessaries,” a married person in New Jersey is responsible for their spouse’s support, which includes long-term health care. Jersey Shore Med. Center/Fitkin v Baum (NJ Supreme Court 1990). In that case, the Court dealt with whether a widow was legally responsible for the unpaid medical bills of her late husband. Up to that time, the husband would have...

As we had previously blogged, a number of veterans we represent involve the question of whether the veteran had sufficient service at or near Vietnam to qualify for presumption of service connection under 38 C.F.R. § 3.307(a). In one such claim, located travel orders out of Vietnam provided sufficient information for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to grant service connection for...

I discussed in a previous post that increasing numbers of individuals with intellectual disabilities are living into their 60’s. What is now being seen is that the aging process for that child — including diseases of old age such as dementia — may start occurring when they are in their 50’s. The parent(s) may be in their 70’s or 80’s, with health care...

The adoption of a child is an event filled with expectation, planning, longing, and finally, the excitement of completing the court proceeding that legalizes the adoption. So many things start to happen that it’s easy to lose sight of the need to protect the child in case of a tragedy. The way to do that is by preparing a Last Will and Testament that includes provisions for a Guardian as...

Special Needs and other Medicaid issues will be on the discussion table this Friday September 18th at 9:00 am when the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health holds a hearing entitled Improving the Medicaid Program for Beneficiaries. The subcommittee will review and hear testimony on four pieces of legislation, including H.R. 670, the Special Needs Trust Fairness Act. The Special...

Just out — summary judgment was granted to the plaintiffs in an Ohio Medicaid case in Federal District Court for the Southern District of Ohio called Kathryn A. Price et al. vs Medicaid Director et al.. The plaintiffs were represented by counsel through the nonprofit organization Justice in Aging  Inc. Here’s the decision. At issue was the rewuirements of 42 USC 1396a(a)(34)....