On August 22, 2016, the United States filed a Statement of Interest in the case of Ball v. Kasich. In Ball, individuals on a wait list for home-and community-based services allege that Ohio’s ongoing denial of services has placed them at serious risk of institutionalization. The Statement of Interest clarifies that non-institutionalized individuals with disabilities who are not currently receiving state-funded home-and community-based services may bring a claim that a public entity has placed them at serious risk of institutionalization or segregation in violation of Title II’s “integration mandate.” The Statement of Interest also makes clear that a serious risk…
Californians with Medicare coverage will no longer be surprised by huge medical bills stemming from “observation care” in hospitals under legislation that state lawmakers approved overwhelmingly and sent to Gov. Jerry Brown to sign into law. The sticker-shock can happen when people go to the hospital but health care providers are not sure what’s wrong. If the patient is not sick enough to be formally admitted, but still not healthy enough to go home, they can stay in the hospital for “observation care,” which Medicare considers an outpatient service. That can mean higher out-of-pocket expenses for the patient. Hospitals can…
One of the greatest fears of older Americans is that they may end up in a nursing home. This not only means a great loss of personal autonomy, but also a tremendous financial price. The average nursing homes cost is over $120,000 a year, in this area. Most people end up paying for nursing home care out of their savings until they run out. Then they can qualify for Medicaid to pick up the cost. Careful planning, whether in advance or in response to an unanticipated need for care, can help protect your estate, whether for your spouse or for…
For more than 20 years, Tricia McGee has lived, worked and taken classes at Misericordia, a sprawling campus serving people with developmental disabilities on Chicago’s North Side. But when the 56-year-old woman with Down syndrome began forgetting her work schedule, becoming disoriented around campus and feeling too confused to do her job in the mailroom, administrators at the Catholic facility moved her to a new program designed to meet a need that advocates say will only be more pressing in the years ahead: caring for people with disabilities as they age. David Wingate is an elder law attorney at…
It’s entirely possible that a very old shark native to Arctic waters was alive and swimming soon after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. Using carbon dating techniques usually reserved for archaeology, researchers now estimate that a large Greenland shark was up to 392 years of age when it died — the longest lifespan of any vertebrate on Earth. At the lower end of lifespan estimates, the shark might be 272 years of age — still a record, according to a team led by Julius Nielsen, a Ph.D. student in biology at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. Decades ago,…
For older adults at risk of falls, the addition of non-immersive virtual reality (VR) to treadmill training reduces the incidence of falls, according to a study published online Aug. 11 in The Lancet. Anat Mirelman, Ph.D., from the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center in Israel, and colleagues conducted a randomized trial at five clinical centers across five countries involving adults aged 60 to 90 years with high risk of falls. Participants with a history of two or more falls in the six months before the study were randomized to receive six weeks of treadmill training plus VR (154 adults) or…
The National Resource Center for Supported Decision-Making (NRCSDM) is accepting applications for the second year of its State Grant Program. NRCSDM will be awarding grants for state-based projects that adopt an innovative approach to increase knowledge of and access to supported decision-making by older adults and people with intellectual and developmental disabilities across the life course. The application deadline is September 15, 2016. For more information, contact Megan Whitlatch. 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,…
Faculty and staff at some of the nation’s most prestigious universities are the latest to sue their employers over high fees for retirement plans. Plaintiffs’ attorneys recently filed lawsuits against Yale, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York University, Johns Hopkins University, Duke University, the University of Pennsylvania, Vanderbilt University and Emory University. The eight complaints hit upon a common claim in litigation over retirement plans: Participants are paying excessively high fees for investments, record keeping, and administration services. But there’s a new twist: The suits against the colleges largely center on high fees in 403(b) plans, which are retirement…
On February 26, 2016, SSA implemented the policy “authorization to access financial information for Title II and Title XVI defeats the purpose waiver determinations” via the emergency message (EM) 16011 SEN. The EM provides instructions on how to use the Access to Financial Institutions (AFI) process for waiver purposes. A new transmittal clarifies how to treat account balance information received as part of a “defeat the purpose waiver determination” for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) eligibility purposes. Summary of Changes–SI 01140.200 Checking and Savings Accounts Added instructions on how to treat financial institutions (FI) responses associated with waiver requests. Subsection C.1.c…
A scathing report by state regulators says staff at a Brockton, Massachusetts, nursing home lacked the adequate training to revive a dementia patient who died after suffering a reported heart attack in April. The 70-page report, released Thursday, details what prompted penalties levied by the state against Braemoor Health Center. Regulators last month ordered the facility to stop taking new patients, fined it $200,000, and froze federal payments that cover many patients’ bills. The report was based on a surprise inspection conducted on June 30 and July 1. It paints Braemoor as a nursing home with faulty equipment and a…
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