Probate Sharks - OBRA Special Needs Pooled Trusts: Permissable Distributions and Federal Regulations

Many of our readers have asked us for more information about OBRA trusts. OBRA trusts were originally created for disabled people with long-term needs, so they could move into public aid facilities and have funds left for their special needs. An appropriate situation would be for a disabled child who received a malpractice award meant to cover long-term needs. In order to prevent the child's funds from being quickly drained by nursing home costs, OBRAs were created to allow the disabled child to be placed into a public aid facility, and have their estate available throughout their life for those things not provided by public aid. Once the OBRA is created though, private pay facilities are no longer an option for the child, in accordance with OBRA laws.

In the Cook County Probate Courts, these OBRA trusts are being abused. The elderly disabled are having their substantial estates (their hard-earned life-long savings) placed into OBRAs. Wards who lived at home or in beautiful private pay facilities prior to their guardianships have their funds placed into OBRAs (despite having enough funds to enjoy their private pay facilities for the rest of their lives), and are moved to less desirable public aid facilities (at the cost of the taxpayer). The wards' estates are then VERY quickly depleted by the guardians, GALs, and attorneys.

Although the OBRA laws were created for the purpose of providing for a high quality life for the ward while on public aid, this is not occurring. Over 65% of the Public Guardian's elderly wards' estates are placed into OBRA accounts, and these substantial estates are rapidly depleted by the guardians and attorneys, with the approval of certain judges, rather than being spent on the wards special needs.

[See ProbateSharks.com for] a comprehensive list of what is allowed by law to be paid from OBRA trusts, FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE WARD; also included are our comments to show what is actually occurring to wards on the 18th floor of the Daley center. These examples are substantiated with public court records. Case numbers will be provided to investigators upon request.

This abuse must be exposed for what it is: Financial exploitation of the elderly disabled and medicaid fraud and abuse on the part of some of the judges, guardians, GALs, and attorneys in the Cook County Probate Courts.

Signed,
Your ProbateSharks Team of Medicaid Fraud and Abuse Whistleblowers

Source:
ProbateSharks.com

See Also:
Probate Sharks: Medicaid Fraud and Abuse Rampant in Cook County Probate Court