Starting on December 10, 2016, the SSA has begun accepting non-medical denial and adverse action appeals online. Applicants can appeal a wide range of decisions, including denial of benefits, date of entitlement, and overpayment. The online appeals application allows a customer to complete and submit the Request for Reconsideration and Request for Hearing by Administrative Law Judge to Social Security online. The new application incorporates appeals of non-medical denial decisions with features already available, including uploading supporting documents online. In addition, people living outside the United States can also utilize this new service. This expansion will reduce the need for…
America’s immigrant community is aging along with the rest of the population, and in many cases, with great financial difficulty. Some 15 percent of adults 60 and over were foreign-born in 2015, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Older immigrants represent a larger proportion of the elderly in major gateway cities and states. For example, in New York City, they comprise 46 percent of older adults; in California, one in nearly three older residents is foreign-born. Late-life immigrants are contributing to rising ethnic populations in rural areas and small towns in the Midwest and South, such as in Minnesota and…
The debate that the country may soon be having over Medicare is shaping up as one of the stranger political debates in a long time. Medicare is an extremely popular program, and it mostly functions well. Its main problem — a large and long-term funding shortfall — has even become less serious lately, thanks to a slowdown in the rise of health care costs. In the campaign, Donald Trump said he would protect Medicare. Yet many Congressional Republicans have long wanted to change the program and privatize all or part of it. One of those Congressional Republicans is Tom Price…
The Internal Revenue Service warns tax professionals of a new wave of attacks that allow identity thieves to file fraudulent tax returns by remotely taking over practitioners’ computers. IRS urges tax professionals to review their tax preparation software settings and immediately enact all security measures. Read more. David Wingate is an elder law attorney at the Elder Law Office of David Wingate, LLC. The elder law office services clients with powers of attorneys, living wills, Wills, Trusts, Medicaid and asset protection. The Elder Law office has locations in Frederick and Montgomery Counties, Maryland.
Boatloads of canoeists paddled into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness this past Labor Day weekend, something outfitters and Forest Service officials hope will contribute to a rebound in visits to the popular recreation area. But if recent trends continue, those paddlers will be quite a bit older than they used to be. New figures from the U.S. Forest Service show a recent uptick in visits to the BWCA. In 2015, the agency issued permits to more than 143,000 people, about 10,000 more than the previous year. Overall since 2010, there’s been a slow and steady decline in visitors, especially…
A startup called Rendever is working towards a future where the physical limitations many seniors face won’t prevent them from traveling – virtually. The men and women at the Brookdale Senior Living Community got to try out the company’s technology. They don’t need to leave the building to take a trip to the French countryside, soar through Yosemite National Park and explore the depths of the ocean, all thanks to the power of virtual reality. MIT graduate students Dennis Lally and Reed Hayes are pioneering the use of this technology with seniors. “I feel for the people living inside these…
September is National Preparedness Month. Throughout the month, the Administration on Community Living will highlight the importance of including people with disabilities and older adults in all aspects of emergency planning. The Pacific ADA Regional Center will host a webinar, “FEMA Promising Practices: Fire Preparedness and Post-Disaster Accessibility Issues in the Home,” taking place September 8th, 2:30-4pm ET. This webinar will have two presentations that look at preparedness and accessibility issues in the home, including selecting and installing smoke alarms and alert systems that meet the needs of people with disabilities. The webinar will also cover issues of access and…
People with autism often don’t respond to commands. That’s why some police officers in Central Arkansas are taking a different approach when responding to police calls involving someone with a mental disability. Dianna Varady, director of the Arkansas Resource and Outreach Center, has a son with autism. She says the situation in Miami is an example of why she is concerned as a parent about people with autism being victims of crime. Varady says people with autism and other mental disabilities interact differently with police. She says her son might not even respond to an officer. Little Rock Police Department…
Colorado’s uninsured rate has plummeted from a recent high of 15.8 percent four years ago to 6.7 percent this year, and the success of the Affordable Care Act in Colorado is almost entirely the result of Medicaid expansion, according to a much anticipated survey from the Colorado Health Institute. The survey found that nearly one in three of the state’s 5.3 million residents now get insurance through Medicaid or other public health insurance programs. New Medicaid recipient Marty Rieger of Lakewood, Colo. stands outside the new clinic where he gets care. In the Colorado county where Rieger lives, a record…
Despite concern about health insurers exiting the marketplaces where people buy individual coverage, in many areas consumers will likely still have a choice of plans when the 2017 open enrollment starts in November. Aiming to make picking a plan easier, the federal government, which runs the marketplaces in roughly two-thirds of states, is encouraging insurers to offer “simple choice plans” as an option this fall. The six new standardized plan designs will eliminate many of the moving parts that have bedeviled consumers trying to make apples-to-apples comparisons between plans. The government is providing guidelines for a simple choice plan at…
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