Maricopa County Probate Court – Senior-aid centers may lead to costly fees
Pat Kossan
December 30, 2010
The Arizona Republic
http://tucsoncitizen.com/arizona-news/2010/12/30/maricopa-county-probate-court-senior-aid-centers-may-lead-to-costly-fees/
A phone call to a senior-assistance center to get bill-paying help for your elderly mother could deliver a for-profit fiduciary into her living room.
So could a referral from a nursing home or a financial planner invited to speak at senior day centers.
The relationships between fiduciaries and some senior-citizen organizations are close and can help fiduciaries land lucrative clients.
An elderly person or a relative can agree to designate a fiduciary to manage the person’s affairs if the person becomes incapacitated. But neither may realize the potentially steep fees of fiduciaries and their attorneys.
Benevilla, a non-profit referral and volunteer agency in Sun City, connects some elderly people with fiduciaries. The agency receives up to 7,000 calls each year, most from the elderly or their family looking for help with everyday living, such as transportation or home food deliveries, said Jane Bruzzese, the agency’s senior director of programs. Benevilla also operates six area senior day centers.
When a person needs help in reconciling finances or paying bills, Benevilla refers them to one of four for-profit fiduciaries that offer bookkeeping services for a fee. Benevilla will set up the appointment if asked.
Fiduciaries also hold sessions to explain their services to Benevilla administrators who run caregiver support groups and day-care centers.
Bruzzese said she understands fiduciaries are for-profit businesses that sell services to people, including care for the incapacitated. “We trust that the state of Arizona has certified these people (fiduciaries) and put a system in place that protects the individual,” Bruzzese said.
Among the private fiduciaries on Benevilla’s list is Pam Johnston, a licensed fiduciary and owner of two fiduciary businesses, who will either volunteer her time to help a Benevilla client with bookkeeping or contract for a flat monthly fee.
Johnston said contracts for home bookkeeping are about 5 percent of her business.
She views the work as a side business, not as a marketing tool to sign up clients for extensive services in the future.
“Mine is all word of mouth,” Johnston said, referring to marketing. “I get asked to speak to different organizations, and churches and nursing homes and people know me in the community.”
Paula Wright of Carefree said she heard about Johnston in 2009 when she was looking for help handling finances for her mother, Bess Christiana, who lives at Freedom Inn, a nursing home in Sun City West.
“I talked to people,” Wright said. “The hospital (Banner Del E. Webb Medical Center) recommended Pam Braun (a licensed fiduciary) and Pam Johnston. And I talked with Freedom Inn and they said they were very good.”
Johnston and Braun own Premier Advocacy and Management Services, whichcharged Wright’s mother $35,441 in nine months. Johnston said she could not talk about any individual case, but said the first year of caring for any new client is always going to be the most expensive year. This month, Wright said in court documents she wants to remove Premier in order to reduce the way fiduciary fees are draining her mother’s assets. Wright said no one at Freedom Inn or Banner advised her that the fiduciary could cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Joan Thielbar, executive director of Freedom Inn, said the nursing home gives families in need of services names of at least three fiduciaries, but never discusses the cost.
Arizona’s Banner Health hospitals also don’t provide costs, said Banner spokesman Bill Byron.
Not every social-service agency welcomes fiduciaries and their lawyers.
“A lot of them come to places like ours,” said Ivy Shirley of Banner Olive Branch Senior Center in Sun City.
Many offer to sponsor breakfasts and financial-planning seminars. “We don’t let them in,” Shirley said. “We see the people we serve as vulnerable, so you try to eliminate anything from the outside that would create more vulnerability.”
Maricopa County Probate Court – More traps can await finances of the elderly
Pat Kossan/Robert Anglen
December 30, 2010
The Arizona Republic
http://www.azcentral.com/news/probate/articles/2010/12/29/20101229maricopa-county-probate-court-social-agencies.html
Agencies whose sole mission is to help the elderly can end up putting their lives in the control of expensive for-profit businesses that can wipe out their life savings.
A neighbor, concerned about a person’s welfare, might call a state social-service agency to check on him or her. Or perhaps you’re struggling, through old age or illness, to manage your financial affairs, so you call a non-profit senior-citizen organization for help.
Costs often shock the elderly, their families
Those calls for help can lead to a private fiduciary taking over a person’s finances.
Private fiduciaries are businesses appointed by Probate Court judges to take charge of the health and finances of incapacitated people when no relatives are available to care for a stricken person.
The Arizona Republic has found that many people don’t understand that private fiduciaries are expensive and that their fees can drain an average person’s assets.
Yet these businesses are used by some non-profit or government agencies to help elderly people manage money or care, often without explaining the financial consequences.
Fiduciaries, attorneys often ask steep fees
A phone call to a senior-assistance center to get bill-paying help for your elderly mother could deliver a for-profit fiduciary into her living room.
So could a referral from a nursing home or a financial planner invited to speak at senior day centers.
The relationships between fiduciaries and some senior-citizen organizations are close and can help fiduciaries land lucrative clients.
An elderly person or a relative can agree to designate a fiduciary to manage the person’s affairs if the person becomes incapacitated. But neither may realize the potentially steep fees of fiduciaries and their attorneys.
Benevilla, a non-profit referral and volunteer agency in Sun City, connects some elderly people with fiduciaries. The agency receives up to 7,000 calls each year, most from the elderly or their family looking for help with everyday living, such as transportation or home food deliveries, said Jane Bruzzese, the agency’s senior director of programs. Benevilla also operates six area senior day centers.
When a person needs help in reconciling finances or paying bills, Benevilla refers them to one of four for-profit fiduciaries that offer bookkeeping services for a fee. Benevilla will set up the appointment if asked.
Fiduciaries also hold sessions to explain their services to Benevilla administrators who run caregiver support groups and day-care centers.
Bruzzese said she understands fiduciaries are for-profit businesses that sell services to people, including care for the incapacitated. “We trust that the state of Arizona has certified these people (fiduciaries) and put a system in place that protects the individual,” Bruzzese said.
Among the private fiduciaries on Benevilla’s list is Pam Johnston, a licensed fiduciary and owner of two fiduciary businesses, who will either volunteer her time to help a Benevilla client with bookkeeping or contract for a flat monthly fee.
Johnston said contracts for home bookkeeping are about 5 percent of her business.
She views the work as a side business, not as a marketing tool to sign up clients for extensive services in the future.
“Mine is all word of mouth,” Johnston said, referring to marketing. “I get asked to speak to different organizations, and churches and nursing homes and people know me in the community.”
Paula Wright of Carefree said she heard about Johnston in 2009 when she was looking for help handling finances for her mother, Bess Christiana, who lives at Freedom Inn, a nursing home in Sun City West.
“I talked to people,” Wright said. “The hospital (Banner Del E. Webb Medical Center) recommended Pam Braun (a licensed fiduciary) and Pam Johnston. And I talked with Freedom Inn and they said they were very good.”
Johnston and Braun own Premier Advocacy and Management Services, whichcharged Wright’s mother $35,441 in nine months. Johnston said she could not talk about any individual case, but said the first year of caring for any new client is always going to be the most expensive year. This month, Wright said in court documents she wants to remove Premier in order to reduce the way fiduciary fees are draining her mother’s assets. Wright said no one at Freedom Inn or Banner advised her that the fiduciary could cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Joan Thielbar, executive director of Freedom Inn, said the nursing home gives families in need of services names of at least three fiduciaries, but never discusses the cost.
Arizona’s Banner Health hospitals also don’t provide costs, said Banner spokesman Bill Byron.
Not every social-service agency welcomes fiduciaries and their lawyers.
“A lot of them come to places like ours,” said Ivy Shirley of Banner Olive Branch Senior Center in Sun City.
Many offer to sponsor breakfasts and financial-planning seminars. “We don’t let them in,” Shirley said. “We see the people we serve as vulnerable, so you try to eliminate anything from the outside that would create more vulnerability.”
Maricopa County Probate Court – Costs often shock the elderly, their families
Pat Kossan
December 30, 2010
The Arizona Republic
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2010/12/29/20101229maricopa-county-probate-court-clients-aps.html
The mission of Arizona Adult Protective Services is to help adults who are victims of physical abuse and neglect, or schemes to steal their money. A call to that agency can save a life.
But intervention by the agency can also lead to ailing adults being referred to private, for-profit fiduciaries they can’t afford and whose fees can wipe out their life savings.
Agency officials acknowledge the potential but say they often have no other choice when there are no friends or family available to take over an incapacitated person’s health and finances. Last year, Adult Protective Services investigated 4,325 requests for help in Maricopa County.
Most often, the agency assists elderly people who can no longer clean their homes, cook meals, bathe or pay bills. The agency says it will find services to help any vulnerable adult, including from a non-profit group or a church. The agency does not provide services itself.
When help is needed, the agency “then will refer to those services based on need and acceptance,” said agency administrator Faustina Dannenfelser. “The client has to be willing to accept the services.”
If a client is indigent or has only Social Security income and a small pension, the social-service group will call a public fiduciary to manage the finances and care. Otherwise, it contacts a private fiduciary. There is no fixed level of wealth that the agency uses to make that decision; case workers and supervisors make the call.
“That is the last resort,” Dannenfelser said.
Dannenfelser estimated the number of cases referred to private fiduciaries at fewer than 50 a year. The agency keeps no record of how often such referrals are made or which private fiduciaries get the business.
“We have to have trust and confidence in our employees to do the job they’re required to do and to follow the directives in place,” Dannenfelser said.
In March 2007, an agency investigator monitoring Lester and Elizabeth Drake decided the Glendale couple’s self-neglect was endangering their health, according to court records . The investigator called a private, for-profit fiduciary to assist. The couple’s assets were estimated at about $900,000, according to Maricopa County Probate Court records.
Over the next month, the private fiduciary, Managed Protective Services of Youngtown, made routine visits trying to clean the house, bring the couple groceries and medication, and take them to doctor’s appointments.
According to court records, the Drakes would offer to pay for groceries, but Jane Anne Geisler, owner of the fiduciary firm, told them they’d be billed later. Geisler told them not to worry about the cost of her services.
Geisler said she feared they would stop the care they desperately needed if she told them about the fees.
In June, at the couple’s request, a judge appointed the Maricopa County Public Fiduciary which limits fiduciary fees and attorney fees in its cases, to take charge of their health and finances.
Managed Protective Services had not been appointed by a judge, yet it went to court seeking $15,194 in fees and attorney costs for the three months work.
The judge reduced the fees to $4,052. Geisler threatened to appeal until the Drakes paid her business and her attorney $2,000 each.
Probate lawyer Jon Kitchel said government agencies should not be steering cases to private fiduciaries at all. If an individual needs help, the public fiduciary should be the first call, Kitchel said.
“I don’t believe APS should be nominating private businesses,” he said. “It is a shame.”
Former Arizona Adult Protective Services employee Bill Dettelback, who investigated cases of people cheating the elderly, said public fiduciaries cost less, but are underfunded and understaffed and the agencies’ first duties are to the indigent. Dettelback, who also worked five years for the Maricopa County Public Fiduciary managing their clients’ finances, said if a client has about $100,000 or more in assets, the agency calls a private fiduciary even though most clients can’t afford the fees.
“Step back a second and put yourself in the shoes of an APS investigator,” Dettelback said. “What options do we have?”
Estate of Denial® provides news, analysis and commentary on abusive practices occurring in probate courts and via probate instruments (wills, trusts, guardianships, powers of attorney). We provide original perspective to educate the public regarding this growing threat to both individual freedoms and property rights.
