A Power of Attorney Protects Your Right to Vote

Your right to vote is a fundamental lynch-pin of what it means to be a citizen – yet you could lose your right if you become a ward in a guardianship. Having a strong power of attorney is essential to avoid that drastic, but little-known, consequence.

A power of attorney gives a trusted person the authority to act on your behalf. Support like that is especially important if there is any question that you might have become unable to make decisions for yourself. Sometimes, however, that situation is far from clear. Elderly people can be dragged into unnecessary guardianship proceedings not of their choice.

This can happen, for example, if you are temporarily hospitalized and a not-so-friendly person – maybe related to you by a second marriage – sees an opportunity to seize control of your finances. Any adult person can file a petition seeking a guardianship. If you had designated your trusted agent before hospitalization, your agent could defend against that kind of predatory danger.

The danger is real. You could lose not only your money and your independence, but also your right to vote. For example, until relatively recently a provision in the Arkansas Constitution stated that “no idiot or insane person shall be entitled to the privileges of an elector.” That provision had the force of law until 2009. And again in Arkansas, once a person is placed in a guardianship, court approval is required before the ward is permitted to vote. Laws like these are by no means exceptional. Many states disqualify from voting persons who have been adjudicated incompetent, incapacitated, or of “unsound mind.”

But the standard to decide whose mind is “unsound” is far from clear. For example, a diagnosis of dementia can encompass a wildly variable population, depending on the point of view of the evaluating professional. And judges usually have no specialized education of their own in psychology.

Whether a person can handle their finances, or retains the ability to drive, are far different questions from whether a person retains enough sense to vote. A citizen who votes for any winning candidate joins the majority of the electorate. Determining, in advance, that one vote of all those is irrational discriminates against that particular voter – when many uninformed voters, who might choose candidates based on the brilliance of their smile, say, would not be subjected to that kind of scrutiny.

How much better it would be, then, to avoid that battle in the first place. With the help of an elder law attorney, you can create an effective power of attorney that will do just this. Give us a call – we would be happy to help!

Five Simple Things That Increase Your Lifespan

It is no secret that a healthy lifestyle has a significant impact on your well-being and the earlier you implement a healthy lifestyle strategy, the greater the potential benefit regarding your longevity. Your lifespan can be increased by as much as 14 years for a woman and 12.2 years for a man according to the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation study. The United States is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, but according to the World Health Organization, it ranks about 53rd in life expectancy from birth compared to other developed nations, according to 2015 data.

What are these five lifestyle habits? The first is leading a non-smoking life and the second is not subjecting yourself to other people’s second-hand smoke. If you have ever been a smoker, find a way to quit. Try hypnotherapy, patches, gum – whatever it takes – but figure out a way to stop smoking. Breath is life, and without a healthy respiratory system, you are shortening your lifespan. If you do not smoke now or never have, that is great! Stay on that path and do not subject yourself to other people’s smoking.

Exercising for 30 minutes each day is imperative for longevity and coincides with the third thing you can do to extend your lifespan.  Maintain a healthy body mass index (BMI). The best and easiest daily exercise is to walk. If you are currently out of shape and 30 minutes a day seems unachievable, then begin with 10 minutes. Make a plan and increase your time to 20 minutes as you become more physically able to do so. By the time you are ready for 30 minutes of daily exercising, be sure that your pace is moderate to vigorous. Walk every day in the morning at a set time and make it your routine. Walking will help you lose weight, gain muscle, and reduce your body mass index.

The fourth and fifth things to do are eat a healthy diet and consume only moderate amounts of alcohol. Healthier foods are generally found on the outskirts of your supermarket and include fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy and eggs, as well as lean meats. The inside aisles of a supermarket are packed with food products, not real food. Much of this food is so over processed and chemical-laden that it is not healthy to eat. Consuming moderate levels of alcohol is defined as one drink a day for women and two for men. Adopting a new healthier lifestyle can include days where you choose not to have an alcoholic beverage. If you have fallen into excessive drinking patterns, make changes today. The liver is a restorative organ and can heal itself if excessive damage has not been done.

If these five healthy life choices are something you already do or are willing to implement in your lifestyle and you do add 12 or 14 years to your life expectancy, what if you don’t have the money to survive those additional years? The Social Security Administration says that about one in four Americans 65 or older today will live past age 90 and one out of ten will live past 95. Where will the money come from if you live another decade or longer? Health care costs are skyrocketing and assisted living facilities are expensive. Unless you are already financially independent, 60 is the new 50 and retirement may not come as soon to you. You can make adjustments to your life today that will help you to become more financially fit just as you can make changes to become more physically fit and extend your lifespan.

Saving money aggressively and developing the habit of spending less is possibly the single best way to stretch your retirement assets. Learn to live below your means. Beyond being thrifty, change your trajectory regarding your investment strategy. Talk to a trusted financial advisor to see if you need to shift any investment strategies.

While longevity can only be estimated and everyone will have their own life expectancy experience, increased awareness of healthy lifestyle choices are changing the way seniors are approaching aging. Your longer lifespan will require adequate funding which can be achieved by frugal spending habits, possibly delaying your retirement, and thinking differently about conventional investment strategies in senior years. Getting sound and trusted advice about longevity and your financial aging strategy can bring you peace of mind as well as financial security. Contact our office today and schedule an appointment to discuss how we can help you with your planning.

Have You Begun to Plan for the Rising Long-Term Care Costs in the New Year?

The New Year encourages many of us to think about the future. What we want to accomplish for ourselves, our family, our friends, and our legacy.  As we age, it is only natural that our needs, and our resolutions in the New Year, tend to evolve. While many of us may have been focused ten years ago on retirement goals, many Older Americans today finding themselves contemplating a potential need for long-term care in the future.

Unfortunately, the costs of long-term care have steadily increased over the last decade and show no signs of stopping this year. In fact, these costs are up over five percent from last year and over fifty percent since 2004. Regrettably, many Older Americans do not realize that Medicare will not cover the costs of much of the long-term care they may need in the future. As an acute payor system, Medicare is not designed to be able handle the need for this type of care. This means that seniors and their loved ones, should begin to plan for how they will pay for long-term care as soon as possible.

We know that this may not only raise questions for you and your loved ones, but also be confusing. Where should you start this conversation? How do you ensure you can obtain the help you need? What should you focus on? Let us share three key insights that we share with our clients, family, friends, and local community professionals when we are discussing long-term care needs.

What is long-term care? Unfortunately, many of the seniors we speak with do not understand what long-term care really is. While they have a vague understanding that there are nursing homes and assisted facilities in their community, they do not know what it means to need to live in one or the differences between the two. They also believe that, no matter what should happen in the future, they will be able to live out their lives in their home. While this may be true for some seniors, too often, it is not the case. We encourage our senior clients and their loved ones to start learning about the types of long-term care as soon as possible.

Will you need long-term care in the future? More and more studies report that over seventy percent of all Older Americans will need some form of long-term care in the future. Whether it is help with light housework and grocery shopping or 24/7 hands on care and assistance with bathing, the future could hold the need for long-term care assistance. We encourage all of our clients, friends, and family to not wait for a crisis to happen to begin to plan for this potential need in the future.

How do I prepare now? One of the first steps in preparing for a future that could include long-term care is to learn what is available in your community. Are there home health care providers? Are there assisted living facilities nearby? Nursing homes? Are they in close proximity to the hospital that is able to best meet the needs of Older Americans? After assessing what is available in your community, take the time to research the cost of long-term care in your community. You can use the Genworth Cost of Long-Term Care Study that we want to share with you to begin your research on the long-term costs of care in our community.

After these three steps, you can begin to plan forward. We work with seniors and their loved ones everyday who are looking to create a plan to address potential long-term care needs. One of the keys to a successful plan is to ensure it can help you both now and well into the future. We encourage you to contact our office to schedule a meeting to answer your long-term care related questions.

The Surprising Health Risks of Hearing Loss

The findings from a 10 year study by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) have reported a link between hearing loss and health risks. The risks include a 50% greater risk of dementia, a 40% greater risk of developing depression and a nearly 30% higher risk of accidental falls. While hearing loss is becoming more prevalent in younger people due to the use of earbuds and noise pollution, it is the elderly population who are more quickly and significantly affected by adverse health risks because of their loss of hearing.

There is a wide range of reasons that account for loss of hearing. Some are genetic while others include noise exposure, medications, head injuries, and infections. While hearing loss is a frustrating experience for those who have it, along with their loved ones, the worst option is to ignore the condition. The sooner your hearing is tested, the better your ability to proactively save yourself from associated health risks due to hearing loss. According to Johns Hopkins University, brain scans indicate that loss of hearing has even been associated with more rapid rates of brain atrophy.

One of the first symptoms of hearing loss is trouble detecting high-pitched or soft sounds. This form of hearing loss is associated with stereocilia, which is the damaging of the fragile hair cells that convert sound waves into electrical signals your brain can understand. For example, high-pitched sounds might include children’s voices while soft sounds include phone conversations or background noise in a restaurant. If you are having any trouble hearing these softer or high-pitched sounds, make an audiologist appointment for a hearing assessment to get a baseline reading. Loss of hearing contributes to social isolation and the longer you wait to address hearing loss, the greater the risk of cognition problems. Meaning, you may hear the words but not be able to process their meaning.

Other than cost, there is no downside to hearing aids anymore. They are discreet, easy to learn how to use, and professionally adjustable over time to compensate for increased hearing loss. Once you factor in the cost of a potential fall, increased risk of dementia, social isolation and depression, the cost of a hearing aid is comparatively minimal. If your hearing loss is profound already, there are cochlear implants, which are devices implanted into the inner ear to stimulate the auditory nerve. These devices can help to restore sound perception in adults with more extreme hearing loss. Your walking motor skills are dependent upon your hearing to pick up subtle cues that help you maintain your balance. Hearing loss mutes these critical cues and makes your brain work harder to pick up sounds, which can then interfere with some of the mental processes needed for safe walking.

 

While it is not yet proven that treating hearing loss can prevent dementia, unintended falls, or social isolation and depression, it is important to investigate as more than two-thirds of adults over the age of 70 have significant hearing loss that can impact their everyday quality of life. Older adults with hearing problems left untreated also incur substantially higher overall costs of health care. At the ten-year mark of untreated hearing loss in an older adults, the incidence of hospitalization increases by 50% or so. There are also higher rates of hospital readmission and an increased likelihood for emergency room visits when compared to those elderly adults without hearing loss.

 

Communication between patient and health care provider is also problematic for those adults with hearing loss. A patient has less participation in their health care plan and can often become confused as to their diagnosis and possible courses of action for treatment.  Also, following instructions post appointment or hospital discharge can be problematic. Costs associated with untreated hearing loss have prompted both health care companies and insurers to find better ways to serve patients with hearing loss.

 

Nearly 27 million Americans age 50 or more have hearing loss while only one in seven uses a hearing aid or implant device. Hearing is often the most overlooked of the five human senses: taste, sight, touch, smell, and sound. Your ability to hear is incredibly important and the longer you put off addressing a hearing problem, the greater the possibility of associated adverse health events. Make good hearing part of your overall plan to age successfully. Like retirement planning and elder law planning, the sooner you address the issue, the better the outcome will be. Contact our office today and schedule an appointment to discuss how we can help you with your planning.

The Senior Safe Act

The Senior Safe Act, signed into law by President Trump earlier this year, is designed to protect our elders from financial abuse from either within a family or support system, or by scam artists preying upon them. Tens of billions of dollars each year are illegally taken from US seniors and these numbers only reflect the crimes being reported.

Issue Percentage of cases reported
Third-party abuse/exploitation 27%
Account distributions 26%
Family member, trustee or power of attorney taking advantage 23%
Diminished capacity 12%
Combined diminished capacity and third-party abuse 12%
Fraud 6.30%
Elder exploitation 5.70%
Friend, housekeeper or caretaker taking advantage <1%
Excessive withdrawals <1%

SOURCE: North American Securities Administrators Association

Often a senior does not report financial abuse or identity theft because they are unaware, embarrassed, or worse, they think that someone will deem them mentally unfit and they might be “put away” as a consequence of having been exploited.  While these are real issues and fears experienced by elderly people, the scale of financial exploitation is so great it has to be addressed.  This is why the enacted Senior Safe Act, coupled with the Elder Abuse Prevention and Prosecution Act (signed into law October 2017), as well as two Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) rule changes (which have already taken effect), will provide the legal protections and financial industry framework our senior population need and deserve. One of the most important aspects of the new FINRA rules is the ability for member firms to place a temporary hold on disbursement of funds or securities when there is a reasonable belief that a senior is experiencing financial exploitation, thus protecting assets before they are taken from the senior. This new rule, in conjunction with the Senior Safe Act, can help keep seniors’ assets from vanishing.

The Senior Safe Act, which was originally initiated by Rep. Bruce Poliquin of Maine, is based on the already existing program in that state with the same name. Similar to the Maine program, the federal legislation allows insurance and financial advisors to report incidence of suspected cases of financial fraud involving their senior clients to financial institutions, who in turn could pass the suspicions on to the proper authorities.

As long as the insurance and financial institutions elevate concerns in good faith and their employees have received the proper training, the law will protect the institution and its workers from liability in a civil or administrative proceeding where information had been presented to authorities in the hopes of protecting a senior client from financial abuses or identity theft. The training includes a collaborative effort between state and federal regulators, financial firms and legal organizations, credit unions, broker-dealers, insurance companies and agencies, and investment advisers to educate employees on how to spot and report suspected elder financial abuse.

Seniors who are most active in communicating with a trusted professional third party about their finances are the least likely to fall victim to financial fraud. Counterintuitively, most financial fraud happens to seniors who do not display signs of cognitive impairment. Senior participation with professional and properly trained employees of financial institutions is the back-story of this bill. All of the legal protections of the Senior Safe Act will achieve nothing if there is no participation by seniors.

It is advisable to find a trusted professional adviser to help protect seniors against financial abuse and identity theft. The Senior Safe Act should make it much easier for seniors to find a properly trained individual who will monitor their financial accounts and be able to report signs of potential trouble to authorities. That trusted individual will be able to identify the warning signs of common scams and educate seniors as to how best to protect themselves; such as how often to check credit ratings for signs of identity theft, reviewing financial statements, identifying common phone and online scams, and more. The laws are in place to help seniors stay protected. Get protected by becoming more involved in your own personal financial world. Contact our office today and schedule an appointment to discuss how we can help you with your planning and participation.

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