Legal

(Will it Save the Day?)

Financial exploitation stories appear all over the news. Money is swindled from an elderly or disabled person by a family member or professional they should have been able to trust. Often, the power to take the money was given freely to the offender by the victim in a Power of Attorney. The theft is still theft, but the Power of Attorney (sometimes dubbed a “license to steal”) made it easy.

A new Minnesota Law will make it a little harder for Attorneys-in-Fact (that’s what we call the person given the power on the Power of Attorney) to inadvertently or on purpose abuse their duties.

What is a Power of Attorney? | A Power of Attorney is a document where one person (called the “Principal”) gives another person the authority to manage some or all of the Principal’s financial affairs. It’s a way to have someone ready to pay bills, cancel cell phone service, adjust investments or sell the house when the Principal becomes mentally incapable of doing these things himself or herself.

Submitted by Jeffrey W Schmidt, Schmitz & Schmidt

Medicaid is the government program designed as a safety net to pay for medical care when an individual or a family can no longer afford that care on their own. The program is a cooperative effort between the state and federal governments. In Minnesota, this program is called Medical Assistance.

With Medicare available to cover basic acute care for individuals over the age of 65 and individuals with disabilities, Medical Assistance is used primarily to pay for long term care. Long term care can include the custodial care people need when they can no longer manage their own activities of daily living, whether that care is provided in their own home, an assisted living facility or a nursing home.