Many elders and disabled folks are doing well living at home, but their house needs some modification to make life a little easier. Maybe it’s building a wheelchair ramp to the front door, widening doorways, modifying the kitchen and bathroom, or installing a lift. Whatever it might be, the state is providing very...
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It Just Got More Expensive to Ignore Your Estate Planning in Massachusetts
As part of your estate planning work, your attorney will prepare a Durable Power of Attorney and Health Care Proxy. These documents are critical to allow another person whom you appoint to legally care for you when you are unable to manage your own affairs, for example, if you are in a car...
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Stimulus Payments to SSI Recipients Do Not Count as Income
But they will count as assets - after nine months. If you receive SSI, then you know that you usually need to be concerned with two things: (1) receiving extra income in any given month, and (2) if that income is still in your name at the beginning of the next month, it’s now...
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Beware Scammers Calling About Your Stimulus Payment
As you have probably heard by now, recipients under the various Social Security Programs (Retirement, Rail Road, SSI, SSDI), will receive one-time payments of $250. The Social Security Administration will send these payments to you in the same form that you receive your regular payment. For example, if your Social Security is direct deposited...
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April 16 is National Healthcare Decisions Day – Time to Sign that Health Care Proxy
Who even knew we had a National Healthcare Decisions Day? But what better time to get that Health Care Proxy in order. That’s the document that allows another person to make healthcare decisions for you when you cannot make or communicate them yourself. Without a Health Care Proxy in place, if you can’t...
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Is Your Home Care Agency Appropriate for Alzheimer’s Care?
We are lucky on the South Shore to have so many agencies supporting seniors who continue to live at home. Among these are home care agencies, which are the companies that provide home health aides and companions. If you are considering a home care agency to care for a loved one with Alzheimer’s, look...
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Do You Have a Defibrillator or a Pacemaker?
If you have, or if your loved one has, an ICD (implantable cardioverter defibrillator) or Pacemaker, you know what amazing devices these can be for saving lives. But if you are in and end of life situation and have made the decision to cease treatments and to focus instead on palliative and comfort care,...
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Write a Letter of Intent for Your Special Needs Child
So you’ve met with the lawyer and signed all the legal documents needed to ensure that your child will be properly cared for after you are gone. Congratulations, that’s an accomplishment to check off your list. But you’re not quite done.
Sit down and write a “letter of intent” to the people you have...
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“Do Your Documents” Now – and Avoid Guardianship Later
Imagine… you grow older and your memory starts to go. You fall and sustain and injury requiring surgery, and the anesthesia corrupts your mind to the point that you can’t handle finances, make decisions, or even participate meaningfully in your health care. If you didn’t execute a Durable Power of Attorney and Health Care...
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Who Should We Name as Guardian (or Power of Attorney or Health Care Proxy) for Our Special Needs Child?
As your special needs child turns 18, you need to name advocates to act as her voice on financial, legal, and health care matters. See my post on the need for a guardianship or a Durable Power of Attorney and Health Care Proxy.
The big question is who to name to act as the...
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