Fiduciary Ties

If you become ill from old age and can no longer take care of yourself, the people you and your family turn to for help can hand over control of your life to an expensive for-profit business.

Hospitals, social-service agencies, financial planners and attorneys often act as pipelines to private fiduciary companies, which depend for their business on a steady stream of stricken adults unable to pay their own bills or manage their care.

Fiduciaries charge fees that in months or years can wipe out your assets. The organizations and firms that refer clients to fiduciaries often do not advise clients of the potential costs.

County, or public, fiduciaries largely limit their service to the poor.An ongoing Arizona Republic investigation has found that Maricopa County Probate Court judges rarely curtail fiduciary and legal fees, even when wards of the court end up broke and on state-paid care.

Incapacitated adults and their relatives say the relationships fiduciaries have forged with hospitals and other agencies, particularly in retirement communities, create conflicts of interest. They say the relationships give private businesses easy access to vulnerable potential customers.

Doctors and social workers working for Banner Health, the state's largest hospital system, often refer cases to favored fiduciaries, court records show.

In one Valley case, a man says that Banner called a fiduciary to take over his parents' care without trying to notify him and that the fiduciary petitioned for guardianship without contacting him. Banner officials cannot comment on individual cases but said staff members act in the best interests of patients.

However, Banner Health's review of procedures after inquiries by The Republic revealed inconsistent policies among Banner's 23 hospitals.

A Banner spokesman said the hospital is working to create uniform guidelines.

In addition to relations with hospitals, fiduciaries and law firms specializing in elder care have developed other marketing strategies.

Among them: Fiduciaries train personnel at senior centers, and law firms and fiduciaries send business to each other.

Advocates say that the system needs to change and that more options should be available for people with average incomes and savings.

Bill Dettelback, former financial manager for Maricopa County Public Fiduciary, favors eliminating private fiduciaries.

"You do away with the private fiduciaries altogether and you might have to double or triple the size of the public fiduciary," Dettelback said. "You just do away with the profit motivation and make it (county fiduciary offices) a state agency."

Mullan, of Beatitudes, favors the creation of a non-profit organization to handle the gap between rich and poor. Her agency plans to offer such a service within five years.

"Certainly, there will be a growing need as the Boomers age, and they're notorious because they've not prepared well for their future," she said.

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Maricopa County Probate Court - Caregivers Criticized for Ties to Fiduciaries