QUALIFIED GUARDIANS NEEDED!

Part II is purely my opinion.  I think we are in deep trouble and most of us don’t know it yet.  

Suzanne Cobb told me, “Becoming a legal guardian is like adopting a person.”   You are on-call 24/7 and must be available to help make decisions related to medical care, prescriptions, socialization, or anything else related to day-to-day living.

WHO IS THE RIGHT PERSON TO BE GUARDIAN?

Even if you are willing to take on the task, you might not be the right person to do what needs to be done.  In general, the court prefers that a family member take over guardianship.  When there are no relatives or friends to take over, the court assigns a guardian.

A reader of last week’s blog, Understanding Guardianship In Texas–Part I, raised the issue that there are also cases in which the family wants to become the guardian, and the judge assigns an agency instead.  Since agencies also prefer families step up and take responsibility for relatives who can no longer manage for themselves, this seems like a big contradiction that is being ignored.

I cannot even attempt to document all the criteria judges use for assigning guardianship or why a judge might deny guardianship to a family member.  If any of you readers have legal insights, please contribute to the Comments Section.

ELDER ABUSE

Elder abuse in out of control. Elder abuse might be physical, emotional, or financial.  We look to family members, caregivers, friends, and agencies to look out for the elderly, but any of those people could be abusing the elder for whom they are responsible.

In 2009 MetLife that $2.6 billion dollars is scammed out of seniors annually.  The report predicts an increase of 12% each year.

How to we make it easier and more attractive for family members to take on the role of legal guardian, pay them fairly, and put in place the checks and balances that protect the elder from abuse?

I don’t have an answer.  I need to research and write a series of articles to address the topic.

GUARDIAN PAY

The court may approve a whopping $175 a month as compensation to the legal guardian.  Big wup!!  And it is work to apply for that puny amount of money.

The legal guardian must keep a record of expenses and submit those expenses to the Court.  Only then will the court approve or disapprove compensation to the legal guardian. Gosh, isn’t that tempting?  And we wonder why there are a shortage of guardians.

BIG $CARY ISSUE

With 78 million boomers getting in line for Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, there are going to be HUGE numbers of us who outlive our resources and even our caregivers. If our brains get fuzzy, we may need guardians.

We need to find a way to pay assigned guardians more than $175 a month.  And we need to find a way for families that take on guardianship to be paid fairly.

These days it seems like it always comes down to money.  Funded non-profits, such as The Senior Source, may be part of the answer.  They are certainly a model, but The Senior Source can only take on a finite number of cases now because they need funding to pay their professional staff.  In five to ten years, the numbers of elders in need of guardianship will be overwhelming.

I don’t have any wild and crazy ideas on how to fix this one.  I don’t think anyone does.  We need to start working on a solution because the problem is about to overflow into all our lives.

If you are interested in becoming a certified guardian, contact the Guardianship Certification Board.

Copyright TheNewElder 2012