Adamsky Law Offices Blog

Medicaid beneficiaries who need at-home assistance (and want to stay out of a nursing home) could soon choose to receive a cash allowance to hire their own home care workers or even pay a family member to deliver their care. Currently Medicaid beneficiaries who need help with the "activities of daily living" like bathing and dressing, must work with a professional home-care agency. This often limits choices about how and when care is provided, since agencies don't always have the ability to send workers at any time of the day or week. Family members sometimes fill the gaps, but they do so for free, thus sacrificing their own time and often losing out on paychecks. Now, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed a new rule that would give beneficiaries a cash allowance to hire, direct, and train their own personal care workers. Paid services could include help with preparing meals, household chores and other related services for independent living.

New research says that taking cholesterol-lowering (statin) drugs, offers no protection against Alzheimer’s disease as opposed to earlier reports which indicated otherwise. The January 16, 2008, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology reports on a study that found no relationship between statin use and Alzheimer’s disease. 929 people with an average age of 75 who were studied for up to 12 years and agreed to a brain autopsy at death. 119 were taking statins at the beginning of the study. During the 12 years, 191 people developed Alzheimer’s disease with 16 of those being ones on the statins. “Some studies have suggested people taking cholesterol-lowering drugs are less likely to have Alzheimer’s disease, but our longitudinal findings found no relation between statin use and Alzheimer’s,” said study author Zoe Arvanitakis, MD, MS, Associate Professor of the Department of Neurological Sciences at Rush University Medical Center

One of your most important Life & Estate Planning tools is the Durable Power Of Attorney . This is a written authorization, granting your chosen “Agent” (also called your “Attorney in Fact”) the legal power to act for you (you are called the “Principal.”) It is similar to hiring an employee to do a job for you, however an “Attorney-in-Fact” is usually an unpaid relative or friend (although it could be a paid professional such as your lawyer, accountant, or financial advisor). A power of attorney is “durable” when it is written so that it remains in effect even if you are incapacitated and cannot act for yourself. With the Power of Attorney, your Agent can take care of all of your financial and legal affairs. He or she can pay your bills, put money in the bank, take it out, sell your real estate (if that’s the right thing to do) and sign documents (such as your income-tax return) in your name. You are putting significant trust in your chosen Agent, so you must ens

Contrary to the Federal Register notice of Dec. 28, 2007, the 10 Regional Offices of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) are not being abolished after all. CMS had announced in the Federal Register that its Regional Offices were being abolished. The notice stated that "Part F of the Statement of Organization, Functions, and Delegations of Authority for [CMS] . . . is amended to reflect the abolishment of the 10 Regional Offices." In fact, the notice was intended to convey only that the Regional Office organizational codes are being abolished. CMS Chief Operating Officer Charlene Frizzera emphasized this in a clarifying e-mail sent to CMS staff Jan. 4, 2008. "The valuable services that the ROs provide to our beneficiaries and other stakeholders," Frizzera wrote, "continue to be provided from the same 10 ROs, but now these services are provided under the field reorganization we announced to staff in February of 2007. . . . None of the Regional