The Tender Talk about End-of-Life Planning
A regular part of the estate planning process involves a discussion with the client about selecting a line up of trusted individuals to serve as the client’s medical decision-makers. If the doctor determines that the patient has become incapacitated, there needs to be a designated proxy who can act on the patient’s behalf. Ideally, this person was selected by the patient beforehand...
SS to allow predesignation of future Representative Payee
Congress has passed, and the President has signed, the “Strengthening Protections for Social Security Beneficiaries Act of 2018”. This statute makes changes to the Representative Payee system of the Social Security Act.
A Representative Payee is appointed by the Social Security Administration to handle the benefits of a person whom the SSA deems incapable of managing his or her own...
Hospital’s Failure to apply for charity care for psychiatric emergency patient leaves hospital holding the bag
DRAFT MUST REWRITE text from daily briefingHEALTH CARE LAW
New Jersey has a Charity Care program which pays for hospital care for uninsured individuals who meet the stringent income and asset requirements and also file an application. If an eligible individual enters the hospital as an emergency room admission, the hospital is required to prepare and submit the application and to take...
Homemade Powers of Attorney can create expensive legal problems
I ran into a situation recently that I thought I’d share with my readers since it’s the type of thing that happens over and over again. The Elder person is living in New Jersey but owns real estate in another state that needs to be listed or sold because he is applying for Medicaid to pay for his nursing home. The person has Alzheimers Disease and no longer has capacity to sign...
Family caregivers and decisionmakers in the complex care of dementia patients
Tha AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving report that there are 40 million Americans taking care of family members with dementia such as Alzheimer’s Disease, cancer, and other debilitating chronic diseases, or physical disabilities, and that 25% of the caregivers are under 35 years old. The medical issues can be complex. There can be myriad medications to manage and the side...
Power of Attorney isn’t just a “form”
I’ve been thinking a lot about Power of Attorney issues lately because of a variety of problems my clients have encountered. A power of attorney is a document that reflects a relationship created between one person and another person in which the principal person appoints the other person as their “Agent and attorney-in-fact” with power to carry out different kinds of...