“Still Alice” — a compassionate film about Alzheimer’s Disease
On a very long flight back from Vietnam last week, I had a chance to see the film “Still Alice” starring Kate Bosworth. What a sympathetic and genuine depiction of the distress experienced by Alice, an accomplished university professor, wife and mother, when she learns that she has developed Alzheimer’s Disease at age 50. The rapid progression of the genetically-based early...
Petition for Class Action/Aggregate Relief Denied in Monk v. McDonald by CAVC
In previous blogs, I had commented on Yale Veterans Clinic’s Petition for Mandamus and Request for Aggregate Relief/Class Action Status in Monk v. McDonald. Our prior blog can be accessed at Monk v. McDonald. The petition had picked up significant media coverage because it concerned the excessive delay in adjudicating claims subject to appeal before the Department of Veterans Affairs...
Pooled Special Needs Trusts can work well for small trusts
There are times that an individual with disabilities who is under 65 receives a lump sum of money at a time when s/he is receiving benefits through Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Medicaid or the Division of Developmental Disabilities (DDD). The problem of course is that those are all means-tested benefits and the participant is at risk of losing eligibility if they retain the assets....
Americas Oldest Living Veteran is 109 Years Old and Still Smiling
Every once in a while a general interest story about veterans hits the news and causes me to pause and reflect . . . in a good way. Last year, it was a historical account of the daughter of a civil war veteran who still receives a small pension for her father’s service by the Wall Street Journal.
Today, its a Washington Post Article about America’s oldest living veteran, Richard...
Tips for selecting a facility for post-hospital skilled rehab care
When a Medicare patient has been treated for three days or more as an admitted inpatient in a hospital, they may need subacute treatment for maintenance of their fragile condition, or for cognitive or physical rehabilitation. If a physician prescribes those services and they need to be performed by licensed personnel (nurses, physicians, physical and occupational therapists, for example) in an...
Protect your Occupants with Documents
Child moves into parent’s home with his family, with no lease, no written agreement. Stays there for decades and at some point, the parent dies.What rights do they have, and what obligations? Aging parent moves into child’s home, perhaps a “mother-daughter” structure or perhaps using a bedroom within the main part of the house, with an informal arrangement for sharing...
What’s in the Nursing Home Residents’ Bill of Rights?
Federal law requires that nursing home patients be given the same services and same level of care regardless of whether who is paying for it — Medicaid or otherwise. The federal “bill of rights” for nursing home residents is at 42 U.S.C. 1396r(c)(4)(A): “(4) Equal access to quality care.(A) A nursing facility must establish and maintain identical policies and practices...
Baby Boomers looking ahead: long term care insurance or Medicaid?
There’s no doubt about it, long-term care insurance is expensive, and the premiums can be steep if you wait until after age 70 to first buy a policy. Some companies have gotten approvals for big premium increases on old policies. The marketplace has shrunk as companies have left the business, and some companies create bureaucratic barriers to paying claims. However, there’s also no...
CAVC – Blue vs. Brown Water Veterans and Inland Waterways . . . To Be Continued
On April 23, 2015, the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claim (CAVC) remanded, in pertinent part, the Board of Veterans’ Appeals decision denying service connection for conditions related to TCDD (Agent Orange) exposure for Mr. Gray a Vietnam-era veteran. I don’t want to give away the end of the movie, but the question of whether Mr. Gray is a veteran with service in Vietnam under...
Yeah But Can We Preserve the Millennium Falcon for Chewbacca’s Benefit?
Elder Law has really broken out into mainstream popular culture this year! There was the first season of Better Call Saul, where the attorney who would be Saul Goodman on Breaking Bad gets into elder law and sues an assisted living facility in New Mexico. And now, on the heels of the new Star Wars Trilogy coming out, we have a galactic elder law fact pattern with a script spec called Old...