Financial Abuse by Family Members, with Nichole Smith

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

The following podcast is provided by care partners living and answers for elders radio. Welcome to answers for elders radio everyone. I am here with wonderful Nicole Smith and I have to say she’s with care partners living, our sponsor today for today’s show. And Nicole, welcome to the program thank you. You look so beautifully bright. Summary and this hot heat that we’ve been experiencing here this summer, and it’s it’s all good because we’re here going to talk about a really hard topic and sadly, it’s one that we really need to talk about, and that is financial abuse. When I was writing my book, Nicole, I have to say I did a lot of research on this because I felt like it was an important topic to address, and I do a whole chapter in my book on abuse and one of the things that shocked me, I guess really shocked me, that the majority of financial abuse comes from family members. Says, and that’s the part that just stunned me. You know, you you think it might happen from somebody that’s a salesperson that comes up and tries to, you know, swindle money from Marm or dad or an encyclopedia salesman that calls up on the phone and they give their money out. And certainly those things happen, don’t they? Nicole, they do, but tell me a little bit about, you know, the reality of financial abuse. So I’ve been working with seniors and their families for twenty two years and my own father also has dementia. Some very immersed in this world. I advise families every day across the spectrum of care and we often have so many red flags that families are squirreling away money. When a person loses their safety awareness. Of course they trust their family more than anybody else and family members actually may be making decisions that they think are in the best interest of their loved one, but later down the line it may make it so that they can’t get on a State Medicaid program because they’ve gifted money. There’s a five year look back. Things like that. We do also see not just family members, so, like you said, the folks calling on the phone. And one of the things I wanted to mention today is that our seniors that have a little touch of dementia, they of course we want them to thrive and the least restrictive environment possible for as long as they can. And I’m working with two families right now where they had zero concerns around their loved ones finances. They were concerned about their physical health, they were concerned they were maybe not having the most nutritious meals and in one case, the niece, who is the power of attorney, was visiting her aunt more often because she did have a catastrophic fall and broke her nose and so she was, you know, sure and things better. She found that her niece was going to the bank four to five times a week with a taxi driver, the same taxi driver, and that there was hundreds of dollars missing and this aunt had befriended this taxi driver and then he said never thought anything about it. Thought, Oh, this is a solution. My aunt needs to get around, there’s this taxi driver that we can trust. And the red flag was she came to check on her aunt one day and the meter was running and she couldn’t find her aunt or the taxi driver. Well, they were in her house having fast food together with the meter running. Oh my goodness. And so the power of attorney the niece confront of the taxi driver and in a fairly gentle way and he got belligerent very quickly and so she actually turned on the camera on her phone and filmed him and then he showed me this and I could not believe the gall of this man and the fact that he’s doing this to one person. There’s no way he’s not doing this to more. You know, you know, and I think our our parents are, you know, or senior, if we’re if you were looking out for a loved one, is senior loved one, whether it’s your parent or an aunt or an uncle. One of the things that I know is is oftentimes they won’t stand up for themselves. No, you know, because they feel like they don’t, you know, they’re too vulnerable to do so. And I had a similar situation. Happened with a with a caregiver that my mother wanted to hire off of craigslist, and this is before I knew any better. Better and my mother was way too trusting and she had given her her debit card, HMM, and knew the pin number, knew everything and she was out there. She we found out later that she charged over Eightzeros on my mother’s account, out of her account, and she got arrested good and had to pay my mother restitution from the things that we could that we could document, but she was making purchases like at Nordstrom and things like that, but there was no way we could prove that it was her making the purchase or if it was for my mother. You know what I’m saying. So that was yeah, I mean basically mom lost like four thousand dollars through this experience and I think you know I I wonder, Ho, how many seniors are that trusting as what my mom was. What do you find, Nicol well, and another client that I’m working with was recently appointed a guardian because the daughter lives far away and can’t really step in and help. And she is so trusting that the Guardian knew she wanted to place her in memory care with us. So go ahead and go to the house and I said, well, how am I going to get in? And she said, Oh, you won’t have to worry about that, she’ll let you write in. And sure enough, knock on the door, don’t even have my name tag on and very, very lovely ninety two year old just waves me on in. Wow, and on my second visit there she had no recollection of my first visit. I could tell she had not eaten and so I offered to go get her cheeseburger. I’d heard she likes the cheeseburger and she gave me eighty dollars cash. Wow, just like that in her home in west Seattle, with no witnesses and, thank goodness you know, I went got her cheeseburger. She would not take the change, so I hit it between two books on the bookshelf. Well, as I was leaving and Senna text her guardian seeing where the money was. But the Guardian is found that her gardeners exploiting her, her neighbors are exploiting her. Basically every kid in the neighborhood knows that they can make seventy five bucks by going to buy her cheeseburger. It’s very sad and this is partly her coping mechanism for how she’s staying in her own home, because that is her desire. But on the other hand it’s very scary. I I entered her home and all I said as you have such a lovely home and said will take a look around, as she’s sitting down. If I didn’t make the bed, don’t look at that room, but make sure you check out the backyard. Total access to her home. She doesn’t know me at all. So we are talking to Nicole Smith and she’s from care partners senior living. And Nicole, what are you know? What part I know care partners. Tell me a little bit about your organization. Care Partner Senior living has a collection of assisted living in memory care communities here in Washington state up and down the I five corridor, pretty much Marysville, the Lacey and we have the largest spin down to medicate in Washington state and that’s incredibly helpful for our families there, and much so. It’s also a floating license, which means that we can apply that license within any of our buildings. That’s wonderful. It is so that that’s personally why I came to work for the company. Have a family member myself with dementia know that it sometime he’s going to need that piece financially to continuous care because he’s very young at seventy, and I love their mission. I feel that we are very true to it. Had A lot of families come to me with all different scenarios and and every time I’ve come back to my company they’ve suggest absolutely make that work. And you know, that’s the thing that I think is so vital about knowing about care partners is that you know, you walk into your communities, they’re beautiful, thank you, and they are vibrant and they’re wonderful and the foods gray. And I mean when people think Oh your Medicaid, right away you have this image in your head that it’s not very nice and that is not the case. It’s not. It is absolutely not the case. And if you have a senior loved one that maybe you know, maybe not very much. I mean, I the ideal world, we always say, make sure that you have like one year’s worth of, you know, our two years worth of that you can spend, you know, maybe in the cell of your home or something like that, but that the idea is, is that, you know, having the ability to know that you can stay there no matter what and no matter what happens, that you’re not going to have be put out on the street when you run out of money. Absolutely a huge sense of peace of mind and the care is really great. I think the caregivers themselves believe in the mission. The cottages of Edgewood is kind of my home base because it’s closest to home for me and with the sunshine. That’s a memory care community. The Care Staff has been putting the supremes on every afternoon and there’s a whole dance party going on out there. That it’s it is fun. They have a great quality of life well, and that the specialization of your organization is so important. You know, your your senior living communities. You have people that are living there independently. You have you have seniors that live that need assistance and, like you said, if if anybody needs you know, develops dementia or Alzheimer’s, which you know, the statistics are. I known, Nicole, one out of every three seniors today die of related causes, and that’s crazy. It is in memory care can be incredibly expensive, upwards of eight thousand dollars a month or more, and with our model of care in the cottages, we can we can bring that price point down significantly while we’re also still providing wonderful care. Right. So we talked about let’s go back to our topic, sure day, because we just have a minimal period of time, but we’ve talked about financial abuse. You know what what happens if you notice financial about. Who Do? Who Do you call? Well, you call me and I’ll help. But APS, the adult protect of services Washington State takes financial abuse of our all those very seriously. In Washington stated as a felony to financially abuse an elderly you or a person who is disabled in any way. You can call nine one one it is a crime and call the police. Removing the client from the situation, though, so that you stop the pattern is what’s most important, and just keeping an eye on their on their finances. I have families too, great checking, you know, for weight and swelling of the ankles and, yes, mom getting socialized and all those things, but you really need to be looking on that checking account and questioning any transactions that don’t make sense or lots of cash withdrawals. Well, and I also say is the more transparent that whoever is doing the managing of the finances can be, the better it is for a family. You know, I always encourage that there should be a separate caregiver account that is handled. You know that as a separate check in account that is done. So if you have a family member or something that needs to go to the grocery store, they don’t have access to the whole you know, funds. There’s just a little bit of money in there right. That helps to protect your your loved one. And I think the other thing that is really, I think, important is if you’re a power of attorney and you know you have I I think that’s a good thing to have access for your family members to be able to look at the bank account and online it’s so is so easy, and to be able to have that password so that everybody’s on the same page and that you know. But you know, the last thing I always say is document, document, document. If you have to spend money for your parent, make sure you hang on to every single receipt, especially you don’t know what’s down the road. And I will and one of the things, Nicole, you said, and it’s really true, Medicaid will do a five year look back on that finance finances. And if you wrote a check as the power of attorney, if you wrote a check for five hundred dollar someplace and you don’t have documentation, that could come back to you, you have to pay that money back. Yeah, or combingling accounts, but you kids and parents, yes, or if your parent wrote you a check to reimburse you for something, you better hang on to that receipt of what it was for, because those things are absolutely important in in that whole process. Yeah, so, Nicole, how do we reach you? So by phone is easiest. My phone numbers two of six, nine, five one and nine one, and then also email. Nicole, care partner senior livingcom. I am one of those Nicoles with an H and I see H Ellie, yes, I care partners livingcom. I’m still glad you’re here today. Thank you. The preceding podcast was provided by care partners living and answers for elders radio. To contact care partners living, go to care partners livingcom