Your Estate … with James Ward: Do you have the right people helping you watch over your estate?

In many cases, a person labeled a “social worker” is really a profit center for the nursing home or hospital

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By James Ward

We live in a complex world, and very few of us can handle everything ourselves.

Maybe you were sharp at 50, and still going strong at 60 or 70, but maybe you also get bewildered by something on your computer or your phone or even the remote control. Most of us these days don’t know everything, and many of us have to lean on advice or input from others.

But who do we turn to?

A client came in recently and she was shaking and in tears because the nursing home was demanding money she didn’t have to cover her husband’s expenses that should have been covered by Medi-Cal. If the client paid her husband’s bill, she wouldn’t have enough income to cover her own expenses — not even food. The nursing home was wrong, but very aggressive.

The client told Medi-Cal they had made a mistake, and her husband was supposed to still be on Medi-Cal, but the worker disagreed. When the client asked if she could speak with a supervisor, the Medi-Cal worker threatened her that if she went over her head to speak with a supervisor, the amount she had to pay monthly would be increased. Are you kidding? How could this happen? Who are these people? When we reviewed the paperwork, it was clear that Medi-Cal had made an error. Once we got it worked out with a supervisor, the client’s share of cost dropped to zero and the state picked up 100 percent of her husband’s costs at the nursing home. She was able to keep her income and not deplete her cash reserves.

In a different case, a cheery and polite “social worker” at a nursing home kept contacting me and trying to use a health information form to have me release my client’s financial records. She had already threatened my client’s son, and then she became angry and threatening with me as well when I refused to comply and pointed out that the nursing home had no right to my client’s legal or financial records.

Who are these people?

In many cases, a person labeled a “social worker” is really a profit center for the nursing home or hospital. True social workers are really gifted people who can help, but perhaps you have to use your own judgment and ask yourself whether the information you’re receiving serves the interest of the owners and management rather than the patient, resident or the resident’s family.

What about the big banks?

I had a client who was absolutely puzzled by his high tax bill. It turned out the banker told him he didn’t need all the different IRA accounts and he should close one. The client followed the banker’s recommendation and was hit with an unnecessary additional tax of about $45,000. Are you kidding?

Another national bank closed an account for my clients and opened up a new one, but the account closed was where the husband received his Social Security and pension payments, so those automatic payments stopped. For many people, this could have been fixed with only a slight nightmare of dealing with the bank and Social Security and the pension fund, but this case was much more difficult because the husband now has dementia and can’t waltz into the bank or jump on the phone to resolve the problem caused by the banker. And it wasn’t one of the new bankers we so frequently see. It was a banker who had handled their investment accounts for a decade.

If things don’t seem right, get a second opinion from someone with experience and knowledge of the situation. Protect yourself at all times.

Jim Ward is a longtime South Valley resident who resides in Morgan Hill. He went to law school in New England and obtained a post-graduate law degree in Estate Planning at the University of Miami. Jim worked as an Estate Planning and Elder Law attorney in Florida, and then returned home to open his own law firm focusing on both Estate Planning and Elder Law. He maintains one office in South Valley and another in Willow Glen.