Blog: News & Insights

There was a time when people who had developmental intellectual disabilities such as Down Syndrome rarely lived past their 20’s. With medical progress, many of these individuals will be blessed with a reasonably normal full life span. This presents major challenges for their parents or guardians, for the child could outlive the parent and lose that critical source of familiar lifestyle...

A Legal Guardian is a person appointed by a court to be the decision-maker for a person who is incapacitated as defined by law, and unable to manage all or some of his/her affairs. The court rules provide the complex procedures (N.J. R. 4:86-1 et seq), but the powers and duties of the guardian, as well as further details about how the court has to handle the case, are found in the statutes,...

“Dementia” is a descriptive diagnosis, but by itself is not a specific diagnosis of the cause of the condition. There is some underlying disease process that is causing death of brain cells, and the type of process explains just what is happening to the different parts of the brain and what the trajectory is likely to be. Alzheimer’s dementia, Lewy body dementia,...

National Senior Citizens Day was proclaimed by President Ronald Reagen in 1988. Proclamation 5847 began with this: “Throughout our history, older people have achieved much for our families, our communities, and our country. That remains true today, and gives us ample reason this year to reserve a special day in honor of the senior citizens who mean so much to our land.” It became a...

When a medicaid application is processed, five years’ of transactions are examined, and among other things, they look to see if there were uncompensated transfers or “gifts.” The agency then must presume that the transfers were made for the purpose of expediting eligibility, and can impose a transfer penalty  for the gifts. You are entitled to a Fair Hearing at the Office of...

I previous blogs, we have written about the regulations governing what is now called Gulf War Illness (GWI).  As prescribed in regulation, the terms of art “undiagnosed illness” and “medically unexplained chronic multi-symptom illness (MUCMI)” are little understood and difficult for veterans and physicians to understand.  In handling claims involving exposure to...

A few days ago, the VA’s own blog, VAndage Point, published a retrospective article concerning the infamous 1973 fire at the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC), St. Louis.  The article can be access at http://www.blogs.va.gov/VAntage/22133/the-nprc-records-fire-of-1973/. As the article explains, the fire “destroy 80 percent of Army personnel records for soldiers discharged...

As we have previously blogged about, there are special rules for effective dates of award that may apply to veterans with service in Vietnam (colloquially referred to as “boots on ground”) for presumptive conditions related to Agent Orange listed under 38 C.F.R. § 3.309(e).  The rules are encompassed within 38 C.F.R. § 3.816 (regulation concerning effective dates of award under the...

If you’ve been an advocate for a person who enters the hospital for treatment and then is discharged to a nursing home several days later, you know that after a three-day hospital admission, Medicare Part A can pay for up to 100 days of skilled nursing and physical/occupational/other therapy in a subacute or rehabilitation facility, provided that the patient requires that level of...

Over the years, I have commented how the informal process of “reconsideration” of an initial VA Rating Decision simply does not exist in regulation or statute.  I previously commented, “This practice has permeated through some of the Regional Offices  . . . but with no predicate in law and, therefore, little protection for the veteran.” While the notion of...