Elder Law Prof Blog

Within 10 Minutes, Three Friends Sent Me Links to the Same NYT Commentary on Aging

I'm going to try not to take this personally, but I realized that within the space of a few minutes three friends had emailed me links to the same New York Times opinion piece  

The amusing commentary begins:

There’s a brutal moment in youth when you go from looking up to your elders to looking somewhat down on them. Or at least seeing them with a more jaundiced eye. Maybe it happens at a party. You glance around the room and realize the gentleman you once saw as distinguished has cheerfully dipped a half-eaten chicken wing into a bowl of hummus. You see what one might politely refer to as a “not young” woman waving her arms around with a little too much gusto on the dance floor. And it hits you: They don’t realize that they’re old.

So how do you know when it’s happening to you?

For the full commentary -- that you can read while smiling, however rueful your smile might be, see Wait, Who Did you Say is Middle-Aged?  

My thanks to all of our good friends who help in shaping this Blog!  

 

 

 

Enjoying Experienced Interviewers and Experienced Interviewees Talk Intriguing Career Details

When my overworked eyes are too tired to read even one more word or watch another moment of TV, I can still enjoy listening.  Over the weekend I caught two interviews of experienced professionals, made especially interesting because of the great exchanges between the "entertainers" and the well-prepared, dynamic questioners.

Jamie Lee Curtis -- of Scream fame (among other career highlights) -- interviewed by Alesha Roscoe on NPS's Weekend Edition Sunday.

and

Béla Fleck of all-things-banjo musical fame, interviewed by WTF host Marc Maron.  

What do these interviews have to do with "Elder Law"?  Thankfully, not much.  But both of the actress and the musician were talking from the perspective of their "age" about how and why they kept going in their crafts.  

Justice Department Expands Strike Force to Protect Older Americans from Fraud

The U.S. Justice Department issued a press release yesterday, announcing the expansion of its Transnational Elder Fraud Strike Force.  The Strike Force was organized in 2019, involving the Justice Department's Consumer Protection Bureau,  U.S. Attorneys Offices, the FBI, Homeland Security, and -- I was interested to see -- the United States Postal Inspection Service

I've actually worked with the Postal Inspector on an elder fraud case.   A woman in her 90s was mailing an unusually fat envelope and asked a friend to give her a ride to a local branch of the post office.  The friend, knowing the woman was quite frail when walking unassisted, offered to get the postage, or to accompany her, but the older woman, who the friend thought seemed unsure of herself, declined.  The friend thought about this, was alerted by what struck her as unusual behavior, and called the woman's daughter and explained what had just  happened. 

The daughter had dismissed a home caregiver recently after learning the caregiver was asking her mother for -- and receiving --  two  or more "pay checks" per week, as well as asking for additional cash that seemed to disappear in mysterious ways.  The daughter went to the post office with a copy of a certified Power of Attorney, granted to her by her mother several years before she was diagnosed with multiple conditions, including cognitive issues, following a stroke.  In fact the reason the caregiver had been hired was precisely because the mother was vulnerable and sometimes confused. 

The Post Office at first seemed to be reluctant to take action, but the daughter was able to describe the envelope and also to provide the name of the former employee who had already been fully paid for his work, and had signed a receipt to that effect. The Post Office's worker agreed to search, but when the daughter departed, it seemed unlikely any action would be taken.  That is, it seemed unlikely until the next day, when a representative of the Postal Inspector set up an appointment.  Having identified and been given the daughter/agent's permission to open the envelope, the federal authorities found several hundred dollars in the envelope that was, indeed, addressed to the former worker.  The officers interviewed the mother and then went to see the suspect, who claimed it was merely an additional paycheck that was "owed."  He  claimed the mother was fully supportive of giving him cash, but he was unable to explain the receipt he'd signed, the burner phones he had used to call the woman, nor the many "payments" he'd received in the last 60 days, payments that the daughter had since documented as more than tripling his agreed wage rate during that period. 

I'm the daughter; my 90+ mother was the person defrauded.  (She has since passed away, so I feel more able to tell this story.)  I learned the Postal Service already understood such a fact pattern very well.  Even at that time, several years ago, the official investigating the facts told us that similar transactions happened all too often.  It is good to see, with this latest press release, that the U.S. Justice Department is coordinating authorities on enhanced fraud prevention and recovery efforts in support of elder justice.  

My thanks to Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Amy Gaudion at Penn State Dickinson Law, who shared the Justice Department notice with me, and whose own research focuses on national security and privacy issues.  

Widener Univ. Commonwealth Law School's Clinical Students to Serve as Monitors in Pennsylvania Guardianship Program

Mary Catherine Scott, Director of the Central Pennsylvania Law Clinic at Widener University Commonwealth Campus, has recently partnered with Dauphin County Orphans' Court in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to expand her clinical students' opportunities for service. Law students will now have roles as monitors in guardianship cases, seeking to maximize the interests of protected persons.  The Pro Bono Guardianship Monitoring Program was begun in central Pennsylvania by the Honorable Todd Hoover, and is now overseen by Dauphin County Court of Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey Engle, involving as many as 400 active cases.  The monitor program is another component of the Pennsylvania courts' enhanced protections for older persons and other persons found to be in need of certain assistance.  Pennsylvania also has a state-wide Guardianship Tracking System. 

This is another example of expanding services to older adults in Pennsylvania, an outgrowth of the Elder Justice Consortium, supported by representatives of all nine law schools in Pennsylvania.    

MA Plans May Not Cover All Medicare-Allowed Days for SNF Stay?

Kaiser Health News just released this story, Nursing Home Surprise: Advantage Plans May Shorten Stays to Less Time Than Medicare Covers.

Health care providers, nursing home representatives, and advocates for residents say Medicare Advantage plans are increasingly ending members’ coverage for nursing home and rehabilitation services before patients are healthy enough to go home.

Half of the nearly 65 million people with Medicare are enrolled in the private health plans called Medicare Advantage, an alternative to the traditional government program. The plans must cover — at a minimum — the same benefits as traditional Medicare, including up to 100 days of skilled nursing home care every year.

But the private plans have leeway when deciding how much nursing home care a patient needs.

One expert interviewed for the story  noted that "[a]s Medicare Advantage enrollment has spiked in recent years, ... disagreements between insurers and nursing home medical teams have increased. In addition, [the expert] said, insurers have hired companies, such as Tennessee-based naviHealth, that use data about other patients to help predict how much care an individual needs in a skilled nursing facility based on her health condition. Those calculations can conflict with what medical teams recommend...."

This is an important issue. Read this story.