For those of us who have reached our so-called "golden years" or are rapidly approaching them, there is another scare on the horizon that rivals Alzheimer’s disease and osteoporosis – guardianship.
"When full guardianship is imposed, the elder no longer has the right to get married, vote in elections, enter into contracts, make medical decisions, manage finances, or buy and sell property. They can’t even make decisions on where they want to live. All these rights are taken away from the elder and vested in a surrogate decision maker, the guardian."
Too often the guardian is a stranger, a professional guardian who has targeted the elderly person as an easy opportunity to increase their own personal wealth.
Here’s how they do it:
They develop relationships with people who work in retirement homes, assisted living facilities, nursing homes, etc. who then point them to likely targets. If you or some friend or family member is targeted, the guardian gets his lawyer to file a "Petition to Determine Capacity" on the target. If the target has been ill, or on medications which affect thinking, or is forgetful, he or she is on the fast track to the guardianship depot. Court-appointed examiners who have never met the person are assigned to determine competency.
Once the target is found to be incompetent and a court-appointed guardian is assigned, the target loses all autonomy. Decisions pertaining to sale of assets, life styles and medical care — are made by a stranger who now owns the person being guarded.
A Government Accounting Office (GAO) study cited a few horrific examples of guardianship abuse:
* A guardian and an employee of the guardian’s law firm brought a nursing home resident in New York cake and flowers on her birthday and billed her $850 for the visit using hourly rates for legal services.
* A company in Michigan acting as guardian for more than 600 incapacitated people committed felonies against them, including selling one individual’s home to a relative of a company employee for $500.
* Rather than using electronic direct deposit, a guardian in New York City appointed to protect an incapacitated person regularly traveled to their branch bank in another borough to deposit her monthly $50 Social Security check, charging her $300 per deposit.
* A woman in the position of Public Fiduciary at the Gila County Public Fiduciary’s Office in Arizona served as guardian of incapacitated people and in that capacity embezzled and misused a total of at least $1.2 million of public funds.
* A guardian and representative payee for veterans pled guilty to four counts of misappropriation after a joint VA and SSA Office of Inspector General investigation substantiated allegations that he had embezzled over $400,000 from the veterans’ estates.
* A woman in Washington State established a nonprofit service organization that SSA designated as the representative payee for about 200 beneficiaries. One of her clients was a homeless man entitled to retroactive payment of benefits totaling about $15,000. She received the payment on his behalf, but used the money as her own, along with SSA [Social Security] benefits for others. She embezzled a total of approximately $107,000 of SSA benefits.
The GAO report stated that because there is no systematic monitoring of how well guardianships are managed, the full extent of the abuse is unknown.
No recommendations were made as to how to stop the abuse and no Congressional legislation has been enacted or is currently being considered to fix the problem.
Full article and source: Protecting the Elderly from 'Guardians' By Ken Concannon
Concannon is a freelance writer from Manassas. If you wish to share your experiences on this topic, he can be reached at kmconnanon@comcast.net.
"When full guardianship is imposed, the elder no longer has the right to get married, vote in elections, enter into contracts, make medical decisions, manage finances, or buy and sell property. They can’t even make decisions on where they want to live. All these rights are taken away from the elder and vested in a surrogate decision maker, the guardian."
Too often the guardian is a stranger, a professional guardian who has targeted the elderly person as an easy opportunity to increase their own personal wealth.
Here’s how they do it:
They develop relationships with people who work in retirement homes, assisted living facilities, nursing homes, etc. who then point them to likely targets. If you or some friend or family member is targeted, the guardian gets his lawyer to file a "Petition to Determine Capacity" on the target. If the target has been ill, or on medications which affect thinking, or is forgetful, he or she is on the fast track to the guardianship depot. Court-appointed examiners who have never met the person are assigned to determine competency.
Once the target is found to be incompetent and a court-appointed guardian is assigned, the target loses all autonomy. Decisions pertaining to sale of assets, life styles and medical care — are made by a stranger who now owns the person being guarded.
A Government Accounting Office (GAO) study cited a few horrific examples of guardianship abuse:
* A guardian and an employee of the guardian’s law firm brought a nursing home resident in New York cake and flowers on her birthday and billed her $850 for the visit using hourly rates for legal services.
* A company in Michigan acting as guardian for more than 600 incapacitated people committed felonies against them, including selling one individual’s home to a relative of a company employee for $500.
* Rather than using electronic direct deposit, a guardian in New York City appointed to protect an incapacitated person regularly traveled to their branch bank in another borough to deposit her monthly $50 Social Security check, charging her $300 per deposit.
* A woman in the position of Public Fiduciary at the Gila County Public Fiduciary’s Office in Arizona served as guardian of incapacitated people and in that capacity embezzled and misused a total of at least $1.2 million of public funds.
* A guardian and representative payee for veterans pled guilty to four counts of misappropriation after a joint VA and SSA Office of Inspector General investigation substantiated allegations that he had embezzled over $400,000 from the veterans’ estates.
* A woman in Washington State established a nonprofit service organization that SSA designated as the representative payee for about 200 beneficiaries. One of her clients was a homeless man entitled to retroactive payment of benefits totaling about $15,000. She received the payment on his behalf, but used the money as her own, along with SSA [Social Security] benefits for others. She embezzled a total of approximately $107,000 of SSA benefits.
The GAO report stated that because there is no systematic monitoring of how well guardianships are managed, the full extent of the abuse is unknown.
No recommendations were made as to how to stop the abuse and no Congressional legislation has been enacted or is currently being considered to fix the problem.
Full article and source: Protecting the Elderly from 'Guardians' By Ken Concannon
Concannon is a freelance writer from Manassas. If you wish to share your experiences on this topic, he can be reached at kmconnanon@comcast.net.
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