Elder Law

I was a Speaker at the 2008 NAELA Advanced Elder Law Institute

By dvanar

This year, the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys held its Advanced Institute in Kansas City, Missouri from October 23 - 26. The program-of-events-10-31-08 shows that the presentations at the Institute covered a wide array of subjects. I attended two terrific sessions on the eligibility criteria for Veterans Administration (VA) service-related compensation benefits and non-service related pension benefits, including Home Bound benefits and Aid & Attendance benefits. The presenters also discussed how to appeal the denial of VA benefits. I also attended several sessions on special needs planning and Special Needs Trusts, counseling guardians and emergency guardianships, Social Security and SSI appeals and medical decision-making.

Although I?ve attended many NAELA Institutes and Symposia over the years, I never presented at any sessions. This year, for the first time, I presented on a subject that has come up repeatedly in cases I?ve handled recently. The title of my paper and presentation was ?Financial Exploitation of the Elderly and Its Impact on Medicaid Eligibility: A Case Study and Survey.? Although I’ve read many articles on the financial exploitation of the elderly, I haven?t seen anything discussing the effect that the exploitation has on the victim?s Medicaid eligibility. I believe we will be seeing this problem come up more in the future. A number of the attendees also had cases involving financial exploitation and Medicaid.

The paper I prepared for the Insitute can be found here, in two parts due to its length - financial-exploitation-of-the-elderly-10-31-08-part-1 and financial-exploitation-of-the-elderly-part-2. My PowerPoint presentation for the Institute can be found here - asset-protection-2-10-31-08.

Full post as published by Law Office of Donald D. Vanarelli Blog on November 03, 2008 (boomark / email).