Every year Medicare pays approximately $20 billion to doctors to administer prescription medications. New rules seek to lower that amount. Currently, when a doctor administers a prescription medication to a patient in a doctor's office or a hospital outpatient facility, Medicare Part B reimburses the doctor for the cost of the drug plus an extra [...]
A new study reveals that broker misconduct is greatest in counties that have a large and wealthy elderly population. The White House has estimated that broker misconduct costs elderly Americans $17 billion a year. As Forbes reports in "What Your Aging Parent's Broker Isn't Telling You" a recently released study conducted over a 10-year period [...]
Picking a trustee can be a cause of concern for many people. If you keep a few simple rules in mind, it does not have to be that way. Deciding who the trustee of your trust will be can sometimes be scary. The trustee has a lot of power and the success of the trust [...]
A new group has formed to take concerns over abuses in guardianship systems across the country to the Presidential campaign. The issues of most concern to senior citizens have not received much attention in the current Presidential nomination races. Candidates have discussed the high cost of prescription drugs, but there has been little discussion of [...]
On March 31, 2016 the first IRS Forms 8971 are due. These new forms which were designed as a way to close an estate tax loophole have caused some confusion for professionals and beneficiaries. The recently released guidance is not helping matters very much. On the surface the desire to close an estate tax loophole [...]
Family business owners often fear that a child’s spouse will get part ownership of the business after a divorce. As one New York family is learning, employing tricks to avoid that from happening can lead to bigger headaches. John’s Pizzeria is an institution in New York with locations all over the area. When owner Madeline [...]
Most pet owners want to make sure their pets are taken care of after the owner passes away. Many have informal plans about how that should be done, but it is much better to make those plans official. It is very common to for pet owners to arrange for a friend or family member to [...]
If you own stock, then it is important to make sure that it is appropriately transferred after you pass away. Fortunately, the process can be fairly simple. Like any other form of property, stocks have their own transfer rules. What happens to them after the owner passes away is determined by those rules. In the [...]
A new study by UCLA found that charges to Medicare were significantly inflated and that payment patterns are problematic. Health care providers can charge Medicare whatever they want to charge. That does not mean Medicare will pay the charges as Medicare will only pay a set amount for each procedure. Despite Medicare's policy, a study [...]
If you want someone else to have access to your digital accounts after you pass away, then you will need to go through specific processes for each account that you have. Many state legislatures are attempting to streamline the law concerning access to digital accounts after the owner passes away. Some have managed to pass [...]