God Bless You and Your Family. God Bless Our Troops. God Bless America. May You Have a Joyous New Year. read more →
1. Claims for Social Security Disability (SSD) benefits, or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) claims based on disability, usually take a long time to process. The decision on an initial claim will usually take months. If you get denied on your initial claim, and you usually will, the next step in the appeals process, called a.. read more →
About one in five U.S. residents – 19% – reported some level of disability, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report released recently. Among those disabled Amercians, 35 million, or 12% of the population, were classified as having a severe disability. Some of the important findings in the U.S. Census Bureau report follow: A wide.. read more →
More senior citizens and disabled homeowners now are eligible to receive property tax rebates, thanks to a bill signed by Governor Jon S. Corzine on December 18th. The bill (A-3460), which was signed at the Bergen County borough’s activity center, increased the income eligibility limit for senior and disabled homeowners. Under the bill, income eligibility.. read more →
In a recent study, “Three Phases of Retirement and Planning for the Unexpected,” the Society Of Actuaries (SOA) identified three stages of retirement and offered advice on how to prepare for each stage of retirement. The SOA said that retirement is often depicted as life on the golf course, holidays with the grandchildren, and traveling.. read more →
Recently, some of the blogs I read regularly have begun listing blogging goals for 2009. For example, see this post on Daily Blog Tips. For some blogs, the listing of blogging goals seems to have become an annual event. In fact, several bloggers, after listing their goals for the upcoming year, have looked back to.. read more →
The next time you must defend the decision either 1) to provide help to families by accelerating eligibility for public benefits based on need, like nursing home Medicaid, or 2) to engage in estate planning to protect yourself and your family from the catastrophic costs of nursing home care, I suggest that you confront the.. read more →
Below is compilation of Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and other figures for 2009 that are of interest to the elderly, the disabled and their families. Source: ElderLawAnswers.com Medicaid Spousal Impoverishment Figures for 2009 – effective January 1, 2009 In 2009, the spouse of a Medicaid recipient living in a nursing home (called the “community spouse”).. read more →
To each of you and to your families, I wish you a rejuvenating, fulfilling, awe-inspiring, enlightening, and fun-filled holiday, with plenty of good eatin’ too, whether that holiday is Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanza, Festivus (The Holiday for the Rest of Us) or any other winter holiday that you celebrate! מּוּלּשׁ (peace) ☼ (joy) ♥ (love) ♫♪ ♫♪♫♪.. read more →
On December 16, 2008, I spoke at the 2008 “Elder Law College”, held at the New Jersey Law Center in New Brunswick, NJ. I was the “Professor”, for one day, of Social Security and Supplemental Security Income Law. This is how the NJ Institute of Continuing Legal Education described the seminar: 2008 ELDER LAW COLLEGE:.. read more →
As stated in the December 19th Editorial in the New York Times, veterans often find themselves desperately short of the information they need as they attempt to obtain the benefits available from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. However, one promising new source of information is now available: a 599-page guide to veterans’ issues, from.. read more →
Ending months of anticipation, New Jersey’s highest court has struck down Opinion 39, a prohibition on attorneys advertising their selections in Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers in America, Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review and other comparative ratings guides. The Court, in a unanimous ruling on December 17, 2008, agreed with a Special Master who found in a report.. read more →
As I reported in a blog post in October at https://vanarellilaw.com/2008/10/07/nj-judge-recently-ruled-that-a-medicaid-applicants-prepayment, ALJ Paone ruled, in a case entitled C.S. v. Division of Medical Assistance and Health Services and Union County Board of Social Services, that Medicaid applicants who prepaid for personal care services to be provided in the future by family members under Life Care Contracts were ineligible for.. read more →
Congress approved legislation that would allow retirees to defer withdrawals from their 401(k) plans and individual retirement accounts in 2009 without triggering a penalty. President Bush is expected to sign the bill. Ordinarily, seniors age 70½ and older are required to withdraw a minimum amount from their tax-deferred retirement savings plans every year and pay.. read more →
A New York trial court held that because the state Medicaid agency failed to reconsider its earlier eligibility determination in a timely manner, its amended decision denying benefits is vacated. dickinson-vs-ny-department-of-health-and-onondaga-county-department-of-social-services, (N.Y. Sup. Ct., No. 08-4831, Dec. 3, 2008). After her application for Medicaid benefits was denied by the Onondaga Department of Social Services (DSS), Viola.. read more →
An annuity is a type of insurance product in which an insurer, in exchange for charges (akin to premiums), makes a series of income payments at regular intervals over a set period. Senior citizens and other consumers often obtain annuity coverage for use as future retirement income. Because nearly $15 trillion dollars is invested by.. read more →
A U.S. district court in California refused to throw out a case against Merrill Lynch (now Bank of America) alleging elder abuse and breach of fiduciary duty after one of the brokerage’s financial advisors persuaded an elderly client to exchange a fixed annuity for a variable annuity and then annuitize it. Sakai v. Merrill Lynch.. read more →
Best Careers 2009: Mediator Overview. If we can’t solve a conflict, we tend to give up or hire a lawyer. There can be a better way: A mediator can often help resolve a dispute less expensively and with less conflict, whether it’s a divorce, a discrimination claim, or the parent of a special-education student seeking.. read more →
In January 2006, the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolution formed a Task Force to investigate factors that define high quality mediation practice. Over the following two years, the Task Force organized a series of ten focus group discussions in nine cities across the United States and Canada. The Task Force also collected responses.. read more →
The Center for Social Gerontology has produced a annotated bibliography on elder mediation. The bibliography seeks to offer a comprehensive listing and brief description of the universe of existing materials – books, manuals, reports, articles and video/on-line information – on the development, provision and evaluation of elder mediation. The bibliography was conceived by a committee.. read more →
The The Times Leader newspaper, a daily newspaper located in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, recently posted a report on its internet homepage on the James vs. Richman lawsuit. The James case was originally filed in federal district court in Pennsylvania, and concerned an application for Medicaid benefits submitted by Pennsylvania residents. The James case substantially changed the.. read more →
My colleague, Marcie Cooper, a geriatric care manager and co-founder of the Elder Mediation Center of New Jersey, recently published an article in the newsletter of the Aging Section, a specialty practice section of the National Association of Social Workers. The article, an excellent overview of the role of the social work case manager in.. read more →
The pace of decisions in Medicaid appeals has picked up recently, with several significant decisions being rendered in courts and administrative agencies in New Jersey. As a result, there has been a spike in interest by attorneys who seek to identify and understand the estate planning strategies that can successfully accelerate eligibility for Medicaid benefits.. read more →
Academy of Special Needs Planners co-founder Harry S. Margolis recently co-authored an article titled “What to Do When Your Child Turns 18” that is featured in the November issue of Exceptional Parent Magazine. The article highlights five key transition points that families face as their children with special needs reach adulthood. These transitions points are:.. read more →
In the Sunday newspapers this week, I read two very different articles concerning people with developmental disabilities. The first, an article by Susan K. Livio in the Newark Star Ledger, addressed a pervasive problem with a grim prognosis for those with developmental disabilities. In jerseys-disabled-wait-years-for-homes, Ms. Livio recounts a common reality of those hoping to.. read more →
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