Jan 25, 2015 | aging, elderly, medicare
Carolyn Rosenblatt, R.N., Elder Law Attorney, Forbes Blogger, easily breaks down the benefits for Seniors since the ACA became law. Ms. Rosenblatt also describes and the most important benefit that got left out of Obama Care.
Jan 20, 2015 | aging, diminished cognition, elder investor, elderly, financial elder abuse, scammers
Elder Law Attorney and author Carolyn Rosenblatt, describes the latest financial scams that specifically targeting elders, and other aging vulnerable people. Watch video BELOW.
Dec 19, 2014 | aging, aging investor, diminished cognition, elder investor, elderly, financial elder abuse, investor, scammers
When your aging client has contact with you, consider it an opportunity to educate them about more than the status of their portfolio you manage. Your client’s efforts to maintain financial safety can be thwarted by clever scammers who are constantly devising new ways to take advantage of them. You are in a perfect position to help keep them informed about financial abuse and the latest information on tactics scammers use. Don’t make it someone else’s problem. Make it part of your services.
Take for example the “grandma I need help” scam. My 92 year old mother in law told me about this one. Someone actually had the nerve to try it with her, but she’s smarter than they were and it didn’t work. However, one of her friends did fall into the trap. Somehow the scammers got a list of phone numbers of many of the seniors living in the nicely appointed neighborhood in her retirement community. They get a young man to call from their list of numbers and say “Grandma?” when a woman answers. If she thinks it’s her grandson, she’s bait. The thief then says he’s in trouble, with some made-up some story to get her to worry about him. He then asks her to wire money right away to get him out of this jam. The unsuspecting do it. And get taken.
A newer scam is the gift basket trick. Again, the older person’s phone number and address are known to the thieves. They call the potential victim to be sure he’s home and then tell him they’re Express Courier or any other name and they have a gift delivery. Will he be home in the next hour? If the victim says “yes, I’ll be here” an official looking truck with a courier name on it pulls up within the hour, and the delivery man hands the victim a lovely basket of wine and flowers. The trap is in the delivery man then asking the victim for payment for a “delivery fee’’ because the basket has alcohol and had to be hand delivered to an adult rather than left on the doorstep. Or so they say. The fake courier insists on a credit card payment rather than cash, even if the fee is just $3.50. He uses a small portable credit card scanner and asks for the PIN number for any debit card. What the victim does not know is that the scanner is a device used to steal the credit card information, in the way this kind of information has been stolen from ATMs and gas station credit card machines in the past. The scanner the courier uses even prints out a nice little receipt, making it all the more believable.
The victim doesn’t realize his credit card information has been used to make a dummy credit card with his name on it, which the thieves quickly use until the victim cancels the card. Thousands of dollars can be stolen from the victim’s by ATM cash withdrawals and numerous purchases before the victim knows what is going on. People are getting tricked by this. The scam is working for the scammers and you know they will keep doing it until the public gets well informed enough to decline the offer of the fake gift delivery over the phone.
If you are managing accounts for older clients, take the opportunity to help educate them about these nasty fraudsters who are easily able to get their names and phone numbers. You can make a difference. Tell them in person or make a handout about scams to email or send to them. They may see you as protective of their financial safety in more ways than one. That can uplift your image, always a good thing. We’ll keep you informed about elder abuse and how to protect your aging clients right here at
AgingInvestor.com.
Until next time,
Carolyn Rosenblatt, RN, Attorney
Dec 5, 2014 | aging, aging investor, elder investor, elderly
When Medicare started, most of us thought it would take care of our medical costs when we got to be 65. Right away, we learned that we have to get supplemental insurance to pay for the 20% of those costs Medicare doesn’t cover. And on top of that, we have to buy a prescription drug plan (Part D). Oh, well. That’s what we do. But here’s the other truth. Even with all that, American seniors are spending an average of another $4000 a year on medical expenses not covered by traditional Medicare.
According to an 11 country study by the Commonwealth Fund published in the journal
Health Affairs, American’s are shelling out that amount, which is higher than what any of those in the 10 other countries in the study are spending. For some 19 percent of us, those costs are an obstacle to getting care.
What costs so much? Often, it is treatment for chronic conditions and medications not covered by Medicare, among other things. Medicare doesn’t cover hearing aids, dental care or many kinds of assistive devices, just as a few examples. My mother in law at 92 is paying over $300 a month for one medication she needs right now that is not covered by Medicare. She can handle the expense, but we know a lot of seniors who couldn’t.
According to the survey, 87% of U.S. respondents 65 or oder indicated having one chronic condition and 68 percent had two or more. Those chronic conditions (such as high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, etc.) need treatment and are managed with medications. Some things aren’t covered by Medicare and that is where the gap lies for seniors. The study concluded among other things that older Americans have difficulty finding high quality care and that we could improve Medicare. I agree.
How does this apply to you and your own aging parents? If your elders are on fixed incomes or do not have an extra $4000 a year to spend on medications and treatment for whatever they’ve got, you could be called upon to help. If you don’t like surprises like being asked when you’re not expecting it, try finding out what your aging parents are spending out of pocket for medical care. Ask them if they have been prescribed any medication in the last year that they didn’t get because they couldn’t afford it. Ask them if any diagnostic test or treatment was recommended that they didn’t get because of the out of pocket cost. If you can help out, offer to do so for aging parents with modest means. They may be too embarrassed to ask for help and simply do without what is prescribed.
The limitations of Medicare are a reality with have to live with, as we do with any government sponsored program. There is no question that it does an enormous amount of good for millions of seniors. Be glad about that and be aware that aging parents could also need some extra assistance from you as they age, need more care and face rising costs. We want them to age with dignity and with as much medical support as they deserve.
If you aren’t sure about what to look for in your older clients who may be developing dementia, you can learn fast at
AgingInvestor.com. Just click
here to sign up for our informative
webinar, about what aging clients need and watch it anytime. It’s approved for an hour of CE credit by the CFP Board.
Until next time,
Carolyn Rosenblatt, RN, Attorney
Nov 22, 2014 | aging, aging investor, Alzheimer's disease, diminished cognition, elder investor, elderly, financial elder abuse, investor, senior citizen investor, senior investor
We know that abuse of seniors is a growing problem. Based on information from the National Center on Elder Abuse, the majority of abusers are family members. However, only 44 out of 1000 instances of abuse are reported to authorities. Why aren’t more cases reported to the very authorities capable of stopping the abusers?
It seems to me that most family members are simply unwilling to “rat out” another family member even when they know that abuse is going on. When it comes to the seniors themselves, there is shame and embarrassment associated with being taken advantage of by someone close, especially someone they surely trusted. There is hesitation and fear. They want to talk about it but not do anything about it. The reluctance to report the abuse to Adult Protective Services is not limited to the seniors who can’t bear to call the authorities about a son, daughter or other relative.
I recently received a call from a distressed sister of a brother that she was convinced was stealing from their parents. He had total control over their parents, one of whom had dementia. His parents had appointed him as the agent on both the Durable Power of Attorney and the Advance Healthcare Directive. This gave him the legal authority to make both financial decisions without being accountable to anyone else and all healthcare decisions as well. I listened patiently to all the reasons she thought her brother was taking her parents’ money and using it for himself. I asked her if she had called Adult Protective Services.” No”, she said. When I asked why not she said “I don’t want to get my brother in trouble”. Where is the logic in that?
In another case, the elder herself had called. “I gave my grandson a big loan and he hasn’t paid it back,” she said. “But now I need the money to live on”. She described how her favorite grandson had taken title to her mobile home and gotten a loan, even after she had “loaned” him most of her savings. I explained that her chances of getting paid back were probably not very good, but the least she could do was to report what had happened to authorities. I advised her that taking a “loan” from an 80 year old and not paying it back would likely be considered elder abuse and it should be reported to APS. “Would my grandson go to jail?” she asked. I told her I didn’t know but it can happen when someone has committed this crime of elder abuse. She said, “I don’t want my grandson to go to jail”. Unfortunately, I am sure she did not follow up or do anything more about the problem.
Seniors like the 80-year-old woman are typical of why elder abuse does not get reported and therefore prosecuted more often, even when a family member is well aware of what is going on and knows that it is wrong. They would rather suffer impoverishment than be the one to report abuse. In fact, these same victims may refuse to testify against a relative who has abused them, even when these cases are prosecuted. Charges may not stick when the victim is unwilling to testify, unless there are independent records to prove the case in court.
It is as much a problem of our emotions and fears as it is of the wrongdoing itself. We somehow justify the actions, we look the other way or we fear what justice will do to our abusive relative.
I wonder, where is the anger at a crime against a person who is easily taken advantage of by the abuser? Where is the advocacy for the vulnerable person who is also our relative? Why are we remaining silent in this growing, $2.9 billion dollar a year problem?
I would be willing to guess that there is someone reading this whose client has a financial abuser in a their family or knows of a family where this has taken place. I urge you to speak up. To my knowledge, you can remain anonymous in your reporting, just as you can with any crime. Whether or not the criminal justice system can prove the crime is not your problem. It is your problem to carry the knowledge of financial abuse with you and to do nothing to protect the elder. One day it could be you who is victimized.
We are all encountering an aging population and the crime of opportunity of abusing elders is not going away. I am hopeful that we will show enough concern, enough responsibility and enough guts to do the right thing when we see a wrong that needs our attention.
When Medicare started, most of us thought it would take care of our medical costs when we got to be 65. Right away, we learned that we have to get supplemental insurance to pay for the 20% of those costs Medicare doesn’t cover. And on top of that, we have to buy a prescription drug plan (Part D). Oh, well. That’s what we do. But here’s the other truth. Even with all that, American seniors are spending an average of another $4000 a year on medical expenses not covered by traditional Medicare.
We know that abuse of seniors is a growing problem. Based on information from the National Center on Elder Abuse, the majority of abusers are family members. However, only 44 out of 1000 instances of abuse are reported to authorities. Why aren’t more cases reported to the very authorities capable of stopping the abusers?
AgingInvestor