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.
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 12, 2014 | aging investor, financial elder abuse, investor, senior citizen investor, senior investor
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Services from AgingInvestor.com are provided personally by Carolyn L. Rosenblatt and Dr. Mikol S. Davis jointly or individually by agreement.
We offer:
Webinars, customized or pre-recorded for you/your organization. Q & A included with live webinars (Pre-recorded, CFP Board accredited CE webinars now available on our website at your convenience).
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Oct 20, 2014 | aging, aging investor, diminished cognition, elder investor, elderly, financial elder abuse, investor, scammers, senior citizen investor, senior investor
As a financial professional, you may not be aware of what is going on in your elderly clients’ daily lives, but families sometimes find out about scammers who have victimized their loved ones. You could come across them too. An adult child of your client may mention a situation that is alarming or your clients may tell you themselves about this “great product” they’ve gotten. If it sounds odd, start asking questions.
Here’s an example:
According to the Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier, an adult daughter discovered that her aging parents were spending thousands of dollars on supplements to fix a wide range of health problems. The scammers were from Las Vegas based Leading Health Source, and they had taken advantage of the elderly couple’s vulnerability to their sales pitch. It might not have been so bad if they had simply sold the couple a reasonable amount of nutritional supplements. But over a period of 20 months Leading Health Source had ripped off the elders for more than $44,000, a sum they couldn’t afford.
This is the piece to which we, at AgingInvestors.com want you to pay the most attention. In this instance, the daughter took action. She went to bat for her aging parents, rather than doing nothing or considering it her parents’ problem.
Leading Edge was investigated after the daughter reported the large sum her parents had paid to them. The daughter had attended an event held by Iowa Fraud Fighters at Kirkwood Community College. Presumably, she learned there that she should file a complaint with the state Attorney General and she did so.
The outcome in this case was very good for the elders. The matter was settled, and the Attorney General’s office demanded that Leading Edge pay back everything the couple had paid to them. That meant getting a check from Leading Edge for more than $23,000 to start and having the remainder of the credit card charges reversed.
The Courier, source of this story reported that the Attorney General’s investigators found Leading Edge well aware that the people they were selling to in this case were easily manipulated. Their telemarketers’ handwritten notes indicated that the elderly woman involved had “memory” issues and that her husband had dementia.
What can you, the professional, just managing money or offering products to your aging clients learn from this?
First, note that memory issues and dementia in an aging couple is a setup for fraud and abuse. If you think your own client may have these issues, even a little, beware. You could be prosecuted if you proceed with transactions. If law enforcement is contacted or FINRA is involved, you will be scrutinized. It could be, in the above example that Leading Edge owners and principals didn’t know what their unscrupulous telemarketers were doing. Perhaps the telemarketers were motivated by a commission or other sales incentive and an easy opportunity presented itself with an easy sale. But the principals were held liable nonetheless. They either failed to supervise adequately or they looked the other way. They are consequently barred from doing business in Iowa.
The second thing to learn is that family of your client may be a very helpful asset to the ethical financial services professional trying to preserve capital for a client. Understand your client’s family relationships and whom to trust. When even a whiff of possible abuse happens, you can report it to the authorities. You don’t have to be right if you suspect something. You just have to be reasonable in what you think is reportable problem. It’s better to report it with the facts you do know and have it turn out to be a false alarm than to take the chance of not doing anything and have your client suffer the effect of theft and fraud.
Until next time,
AgingInvestor.com
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.
As a financial professional, you may not be aware of what is going on in your elderly clients’ daily lives, but families sometimes find out about scammers who have victimized their loved ones. You could come across them too. An adult child of your client may mention a situation that is alarming or your clients may tell you themselves about this “great product” they’ve gotten. If it sounds odd, start asking questions.
AgingInvestor