Power of Attorney - Healthcare Warnings

Powers of attorney for healthcare decision making are a valuable tool to ensure that your medical wishes are carried out if you become incapacitated and unable to express your desires. However, these powers can be abused and cost you dearly - in terms of your personal well-being and even your finances.

Here's a real life story to illustrate:

Dad is 80 years old and suffers from dementia. While mentally incapacitated, his son manipulates Dad into signing powers of attorney for both finances and for healthcare.

Dad has enough money in various investments and bank accounts to pay for in-home caregiving services. These services are very expensive, but he, like most elderly individuals, would prefer to remain at home in a familiar and comfortable environment. If Dad was mentally capable of deciding where he would live and whether his savings should be used for his care, then he certainly would choose to remain at home.

Unfortunately, his son has different ideas. He views Dad as a cash cow, and sees no reason why Dad's money should be used for in-home care and deplete son's inheritance.

Therefore, son uses the power of attorney for healthcare (referred to as an Advance Health Care Directive in California) to have Dad permanently placed in a nursing home. Son also speaks with the nursing staff, and convinces them that Dad's other children intend to harm him, and that no one is to have any access or communication with Dad, unless son authorizes it.

Isolation is a key element in elder financial abuse. In order for son to carry out his plan, he must make sure that all outside contact with Dad is halted; otherwise, a family member or friend could visit Dad, ask questions of the nursing staff, and uncover son's devious plot of exploitation.

Now that Dad has been warehoused in a nursing home (via the healthcare power of attorney), son has free rein to use the financial power of attorney to access all of Dad's monies. Son can close accounts, open new accounts in son's name only, and transfer all of Dad's monies. Soon, Dad is broke and the nursing home bills will be paid for by the state.

Sounds incredible, but this is a true story. Fortunately, some help is available, but it requires someone to recognize that abuse is taking place and then step up to the plate and intervene.

In California, for example, nursing home personnel are mandated reporters. This means that the law requires that they report, to law enforcement or Adult Protective Services, any reasonable suspicion that elder abuse is occurring. The tip can be anonymous. Adult Protective Services would then interview Dad, the nursing staff, and son, and determine whether abuse is taking place and whether the matter needs to be referred to law enforcement.

An elder law attorney can also assist with civil litigation to freeze Dad's accounts, recover the monies wrongfully taken, and return Dad to his home with in-home health care assistance; provided, however, that son has not already spent most of Dad's money.

While a power of attorney for healthcare is an important tool, it can also be abused if placed into the hands of an unscrupulous person.