Florida’s guardianship system for elders needs guarding of its own | Editorial

The latest revelations about Rebecca Fierle — the woman at the center of the guardianship scandal — are shocking.

The Orange County comptroller’s office this week produced a report that shows Fierle was representing the interests of hundreds of elders without the oversight of a judge.

She was double-billing for her services, according to the report, presenting AdventHealth with bills totaling nearly $4 million over the past decade. Again, some of that was on behalf of vulnerable adults a judge may never have authorized her to represent.

The comptroller’s findings — the number of elderly people involved, and the amount of money improperly billed and paid — are breathtaking.

Let’s not forget, Fierle is the guardian who is accused of signing a “do not resuscitate” order against the will of one of her wards, 75-year-old Steven Stryker of Tampa. Stryker subsequently died, and doctors weren’t authorized to help him.

We don’t know if Fierle, who has not been charged with a crime, was a single rogue guardian among the many who help elderly people with personal affairs they can no longer handle on their own.

We do know that it’s essential that Gov. Ron DeSantis leads the charge in getting to the bottom of that essential question: Is this a case of one bad apple, or is this a symptom of a broken system that allows the type of elder and financial abuses outlined in recent Sentinel reports and in this week’s report by Orange County Comptroller Phil Diamond?

DeSantis’ staff is meeting Monday in Tallahassee with representatives from the courts and clerks office, Department of Elder Affairs, state attorney’s office, guardianship associations and lawmakers who have advocated elder law reform.

They need to act with urgency in finding and patching cracks in the guardian system. A state with so many elderly people can’t afford to have a faulty system that gives so much power — even that of life and death — over the wards in their care.

Yes, the state took steps in 2015 to improve the system for assigning guardians to someone.

One law was intended to stop the practice of “trolling,” where professional guardians descended on nursing homes to sway elderly patients into signing away their rights.

But as the Sentinel’s reporting has demonstrated, the system remains vulnerable to abuse.

For starters — and maybe foremost — how did Fierle manage to get paid for services on behalf of people she may not have been authorized to represent?

And how could an organization as large and sophisticated as AdventHealth pay bills submitted by Fierle without knowing whether she was authorized to submit those bills on behalf of a ward? And at an hourly rate double what’s allowed by law?

It’s possible AdventHealth is a victim here, too, by paying bills it shouldn’t have. For its part, AdventHealth said in a statement it was “surprised and dismayed” by the comptroller’s findings.

Another problem: It’s far too easy for guardians to authorize DNR orders.

These forms offer individuals the dignity to die on their own terms, but in Florida this only requires signatures from the doctor and patient or legal guardian on an official document.

Signing someone’s rent check because you manage their financial affairs is one thing. But signing what could amount to a person’s death order should require judicial oversight.

We also need more public guardians to take on the cases for those who can’t afford to hire a guardian in the open market. That’s going to require more money. Public guardians got a recent pay increase in the last session — $3,000 a year per client. It’s still not enough. Increase their pay, again.

Finally, our state needs to have a centralized database to track guardians and their wards.

Many professional guardians, like Fierle, represent clients from all across the state. Keeping track by going through each circuit court makes no sense.

Palm Beach County has already done the heavy lifting of creating a database. Make it mandatory that professional guardians use this system for their audits so judicial oversight can cut across county lines.

There’s likely a lot more that needs to be done. So do it.

Do what it takes to protect our must vulnerable neighbors from the bad apples.

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Florida’s guardianship system for elders needs guarding of its own | Editorial