Patti's Blog - Advocate for Elders, People with Disabilities and Their Families

Medicaid Eligibility: Using Estate Planning Techniques

Excerpt from: Strafford Pub (click for more information)

 

Tuesday, June 18, 2013
1:00pm-2:30pm EDT, 10:00am-11:30am PDT

Early Registration Discount Deadline, Friday, May 24, 2013

Elder law practitioners must integrate estate planning with long-term care planning and may need to contemplate a client's eligibility for Medicaid long-term care coverage. Understanding the tools available to assist clients in achieving Medicaid eligibility, while ensuring assets are protected, is critical.

Strategies to consider for income planning, gifting and asset protection include annuities and various trusts such as special needs trusts and credit shelter trusts.

Counsel must understand transfer of asset rules, exceptions to the rules, the application of the five-year look back, and how to maximize coverage. Counsel must also recognize pitfalls and potential penalties for transferring and gifting assets.

Listen as our authoritative panel of elder law attorneys outlines how to use estate planning tools to best ensure that clients meet the Medicaid eligibility requirements.

 

Patti is speaking at this event.

The cost of care

Excerpt from: Life Health Pro (click for full article)

 

This year marks the tenth anniversary of Genworth Financial's Cost of Care survey and it's a great time to discuss long-term care in all its forms with your clients. By minimizing their risk, you can help them prepare to meet the challenges of tomorrow before the task becomes too monumental to achieve.

Here's how.

Get to know what your clients value.

National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys Celebrates National Elder Law Month

Excerpt from: NAELA.org (click for full article)

 

The National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA), an association of attorneys dedicated to improving the quality of legal services provided to older Americans and individuals with special needs, established May as National Elder Law Month as a way to educate seniors and their families about their legal options in dealing with elder abuse and neglect, nursing home issues, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, trust and estate planning, and other important issues.
“NAELA focuses on educating its members and advocating for the rights of seniors and people with special needs. National Elder Law Month gives members the opportunity to go out and educate their local communities on the importance of planning for your future health and legal needs. Elder Law attorneys can assist their clients throughout the process,” said NAELA President Gregory S. French, CELA, CAP.

Slow Lawyering: Representing Seniors in Light of Cognitive Changes Accompanying Aging

Excerpt from: Penn State Law Review (click for full article)

 

As an increasing number of lawyers represent clients who are elderly, it is imperative that lawyers become more knowledgeable about the aging process and how it impacts our clients. Although it is difficult to generalize, many seniors experience numerous and diverse cognitive changes that accompany the aging process. Existing literature offers various frameworks for addressing capacity issues and techniques for assessing diminished capacity. However, current legal scholarship provides little guidance for lawyers on how to accommodate these changes when they do not rise to the level of diminished capacity or dementia, and when the changes may, in fact, result in increased wisdom and “developmental intelligence.” This article seeks to fill that void. It summarizes selected cognitive developments that impact memory, outlining various types of memory and how they evolve during the aging process. This article also discusses current literature on decision-making capacity and different decision-making models and strategies that seniors may rely upon. The article concludes with recommendations on methods for enhancing communications with aging clients, while simultaneously acknowledging and accommodating cognitive changes and enabling seniors to play a prominent role in the representational process.
* Professor of Law and Director, Elder Law Clinic, Syracuse University College of Law.

MAY IS ELDER LAW MONTH!!

Excerpt from: Cramer Law Center (click for full article)

 

May has been declared to be National Elder Law Month and Older Americans Month.  We think that makes this the perfect time to discuss how we and other elder law attorneys can serve “older Americans” (defined as those who are at least 60 years of age).

Window On Washington: New Normal Attends Two Major Disability Conferences

Excerpt from: The Jewish Week (click for full article)

 

This week I attended two major conferences for lawyers whose main function is to help people with disabilities. Frankly, it would be wonderful if these lawyers weren't needed. Imagine a society that valued people with disabilities enough that our constitutional rights would be automatically protected.

Imagine if needed educational and healthcare services were accessible without a lawyer! But, as this is only a dream at this point, these lawyers play a vital role for many people with disabilities and their families. Pity the millions of poor people (literally) who can't afford these services, as they can, again literally, save life and independence for the people who benefit from them.

The first conference was sponsored by the "Special Needs Alliance (SNA)," a national, not-for-profit organization of attorneys dedicated to the practice of disability and public benefits law. Mostly, these lawyers help with such functions as wills, estate planning and guardianship issues as well as gaining government services and benefits that can be complicated and challenging to access.

National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys Supports National Healthcare Decisions Day

Excerpt from: NAELA (click for full article)

 

National Healthcare Decisions Day is April 16. The National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA), along with other national, state, and community organizations, is leading a massive effort to highlight the importance of advance health care decision-making—an effort that has culminated in the formal designation of April 16 as National Healthcare Decisions Day (NHDD). As a participating organization, NAELA members provide information and tools for seniors and individuals with special needs to talk about their wishes with family, friends, and healthcare providers, and execute written advance directives (healthcare power of attorney and living will) in accordance with state laws.

 

Provide the best service possible

Excerpt from: WLKM (click for full article)

 

A state administrative judge has sided with about half of 30 people with disabilities who said their services were illegally cut by the Community Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services of St. Joseph County.

The clients, who were represented by Farmington Hills-based attorney Patricia Dudek, said 25 percent, across-the-board cuts by the Centreville-based agency in January were unfairly and illegally implemented.

At issue was the number of hours for activities, co-op employment opportunities and other services for CMHSAS clients who are mentally or physically compromised.

Liz O’Dell, CMHSAS executive director, said she respects the judge’s decision and the agency will maintain its focus on providing the best service possible to its clients.

CMH services restored for some clients

Excerpt from: Sturgis Journal (click for full article)

 

A state administrative judge has sided with about half of 30 people with disabilities who say their services were illegally cut by a St. Joseph County agency.

Appeals filed by clients of the Community Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services of St. Joseph County were represented by Farmington Hills attorney Patricia Kefalas-Dudek, an authority on disability rights.

Kefalas-Dudek said 25 percent across-the-board cuts imposed on CMHSAS clients were unfairly and illegally implemented in January.

At issue was the number of hours for activities, co-op employment opportunities and other services for CMHSAS clients who are mentally or physically compromised. A number of those clients were served by Michigan Agency with Choice. The Sturgis agency has terminated its contract and the agreement with CMHSAS will end in early June.

Kefalas-Dudek said CMHSAS staff and board members insisted over the course of several months that the cuts were appropriate.

“It was always exceedingly clear that the cuts were illegally handled,” Kefalas-Dudek said in a press statement. “The fact that board members blindly followed their leader, at the expense of the people they are supposed to protect, is deeply troubling.”

Wayne State Law School fellowship program helps low-income Karmanos cancer patients

Excerpt from: Crain's Detroit Business (click for full article)

 

After she graduated from the Wayne State University Law School in 2011, Kathy Smolinski was awarded a fellowship to open a program that provides legal advice to outpatients at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit.

The two-year fellowship made sense to Smolinksi, 45, in that she had spent 16 years as an oncology social worker. She decided to become a lawyer to continue advocacy for low-income cancer patients.

"It is a medical-legal project, but it really is a health care delivery model because legal services are integrated right into the other (health care) services provided" at Karmanos, she said.

Through the Legal Advocacy for People with Cancer project, Smolinksi has helped more than 120 Karmanos patients.

"We focus on patients in the outpatient setting because those inpatients are too sick to do anything," she said.

Smolinksi receives referrals from Karmanos' nine-member social work department, of which she is a member.

"We focus on helping patients with insurance, housing, employment, legal or long-term planning (wills and advanced directives) and public benefits" such as Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security, Smolinski said.

The Wayne State clinic follows the model developed by the Washington, D.C.-based National Center for Medical Legal Partnership. There are 97 partnerships in the U.S. at 235 medical institutions, including clinics at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and Beaumont Health System in Royal Oak.