Tag Archives: Colorado mandatory reporting elder abuse

Elder Abuse Detection: the Vital Role of the Physician

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Flowers in Stone

Colorado physicians are mandatory reporters under the Colorado elder abuse statute.  See Colo. Rev. Stat. §18-6.5-108(1)(a) – (1)(b).

There is typically a lot of shame and guilt around abuse or exploitation with an elder victim, particularly when the abuse is perpetrated by an adult child or family member of the elder and the elder may be reluctant to take any protective action on their own.  The elder often suffers alone and in silence and will sometimes neglect themselves as a result.  Remember that we don’t really have any firm grasp on how rampant elder abuse or exploitation is in our country due a number of factors which include: the reluctance of a victim to self-report; the variety of state law definitions of what constitutes elder abuse; and a lack of any central clearinghouse for collection of state or federal data concerning reports of elder abuse (in its different aspects).

Financial exploitation, emotional or physical abuse tend to have serious and life-shortening health effects for an elder.  Remember that a 2009 JAMA article on Elder Self-Neglect and Abuse and Mortality Risk stated that elders who have been abused have a 300% higher risk of death compared to their age cohort of those who have not suffered such abuse.  This is most certainly a health issue for at-risk elders and this fact makes it that much more important that doctors, particularly ER (or ED) doctors be trained to recognize the signs of abuse or self-neglect resulting from mistreatment.

The ER doctor sees not just the immediate physical effects or injuries of a physical abuse or emotional abuse (spiking blood pressure, increasing risk of stroke or heart attack) but they also see the effects of depression and other factors which both contribute to an elder’s isolation and vulnerability and are the ongoing results and manifestations of the elder’s victimization.

A recent Kaiser Health news article recently highlighted findings from a study in New York on increasing ER doctors’ awareness of signs of elder abuse.  Some of the training is around going behind the explanation of the injuries – usually from a fall or some other accident, and asking questions which may uncover the abuse which caused the “accident” and its injuries.  We have a long way to go to train more ER doctors to be up and running mandatory reports.  Doctors have made huge strides in recognizing other “accidents” or injuries resulting from domestic violence and child abuse and we need to have the same strides made for the detection and reporting of elder abuse.  It’s time!  We need to connect the ER doctors more effectively with the agencies involved in assisting victims – adult protection services and law enforcement agencies.

Here is an informative pdf from Florida State University’s National Prevention Toolkit on Domestic Violence for Medical Professionals. You might think it has to do with domestic violence, but it is a document that looks at each of the fifty states’ laws on reporting elder physical abuse. It identifies the reporting law for elder abuse, identifies who are the mandatory reporters (especially physicians and other health care professional) and provides some detail concerning the applicable civil and criminal statutes.

Why is it important to empower doctors with this information? An article from 2015 on physician screening for elder abuse observed:

Healthcare workers, more specifically Emergency Department physicians, are in a unique position in which they can not only screen and detect elder abuse in their patients, but also can change the abusive situation and prevent its continuation.

A brief article on emergency department care (filed under elder abuse treatment and management) urges doctors to take the time needed to assess a suspicious situation, noting that elders do not usually self-report and observing there may be concerns around balancing autonomy and safety.  Referral to APS is noted as “vital to decrease morbidity.”

Physicians and other health care professionals can provide important, necessary and perhaps life-saving medical care to victims of elder abuse.  Here is a link to a webinar on the ElderJustice.gov site to a webinar entitled “How EMTs Can Help Identify and Report Elder Abuse.”  When there is widely available training of medical professionals about how to ask and what to ask an elder on this difficult topic and there is also familiarity with available reporting units (APS or law enforcement) and sources for service referrals to assist the elder, elders in our community will be better served and the community will have another valuable resource for reporting incidents of abuse.

© Barbara E. Cashman 2017   www.DenverElderLaw.org

What If We Declared a War on Elder Abuse?

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Diana in Venice

What will it take to raise the public’s awareness of the prevalence of elder abuse? Here is a recent New York Times article about a woman from Washington state, a granddaughter of a victim of elder financial exploitation, who has made her mission in life to secure further legal protection for vulnerable elders.  I tip my hat to the Elder Law Profs blog for the mention of this article.  For this post, I’m focusing primarily on financial fraud and exploitation of elders.

Colorado statistics over the last several years (since the change in law concerning mandatory reporting of elder abuse and investigation by law enforcement) indicate the numbers continue to rise dramatically.  Read this Denver Post article from last fall with some of the breathtaking numbers in Colorado.  The national numbers are a bit more complicated, due in part to the variances of state laws concerning elder abuse – not all states have made it a crime to financially exploit an elder, as well as how such crimes get reported.  In Colorado, law enforcement and county adult protective services are part of the investigative framework for suspected elder abuse and some district attorneys’ offices have specialized prosecutors for such crimes.  The federal law, the Elder Justice Act – about which I have previously written, could provide an important means for developing a more systematic approach to reporting (among other important things) remains only partly funded.

A 2011 study published by MetLife Mature Market Institute estimates the financial loss by victims of elder financial crimes and exploitation exceeds $2.9 billion dollars annually, but this number remains controversial as other studies have estimated $17 billion or $36 billion.  Read about the variety of those numbers here.

How do we define fraud on elders?  That is a big part of the problem with a lack of any “standardized” way to identify such fraud and abuse so as to generate reportable numbers for particular types of fraud and abuse.  One thing that most are certain of is that the exploitation and fraud are both widely underreported –due to the shame and embarrassment factor, particularly when the perpetrator is a family member, friend or neighbor (occupying a position of trust).

Know the risk factors

Forbes recently ran an article by John Wasik that had a great summary of four of these which consider the elder’s behavior:

  • Poor Physical Health. Those who are physically compromised are unlikely to be focused on financial matters. They are often vulnerable to swindles.
  • Cognitive Impairment. When the ability to do basic things like read a banking statement or balance a checkbook declines, that’s when you have to pay attention. Those with declining math skills will not be asking important questions about new investing “opportunities.”
  • Difficulty in Activities of Daily Living. If a person has trouble feeding themselves, bathing or shopping, that’s a big set of red flags. That also means that they will have trouble managing money.
  • Social Isolation.Are they all alone? Then they won’t have the support of a network of peers, who could warn about scams.

Recognize the signs

The signs are of course numerous and varied, but keep in mind that there are many ways in which the behavior of the perpetrator of the fraud or exploitation of the elder mimics that of a perpetrator of domestic violence.

  • Use and abuse of control of the elder’s finances, such as taking, misusing, or using without the elder’s knowledge or permission their money or property;
  • Forging, forcing, or using deception, coercion or undue influence to get an elder person’s signature on a legal document – this could include signing over title to a home or other asset, or a power of attorney or a will;
  • Forging or otherwise forcing, or using deception or other inappropriate means to misappropriate funds from a pension or other retirement income, to cash an elder’s checks without permission or authorization;
  • Abusing joint signature authority on a bank account or misusing ATMs or credit cards;
  • Exploitation through a fiduciary relationship – such as an agent under a financial power of attorney acting beyond the scope of the agent’s authority, or improperly using the authority provided by a conservatorship, trust, etc.
  • Misleading an elder by providing true but misleading information that influences the elder person’s use or assignment of assets, persuading an impaired elder person to change a will or insurance policy to alter who benefits from the will or policy;
  • Promising long-term or lifelong care in exchange for money or property and not following through on the promise, overcharging for or not delivering caregiving services; and
  • Denying elders access to their money or preventing them from controlling their assets or gaining information about their assets.

Keep in mind that neither of these lists is comprehensive or exhaustive!

Report suspected abuse, exploitation or fraud

If you aren’t sure who to call and the situation doesn’t require a 911 call, use the National Center on Elder Abuse’s resource page to determine who to call.

The only way we will get a better handle on the extent and pervasiveness of elder financial abuse and exploitation is to become more familiar with it so that we know how to ask those whom we seek to protect.

© Barbara E. Cashman 2017   www.DenverElderLaw.org

When and How Should Someone Report Suspected Elder Financial Abuse or Exploitation?

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Safety in Numbers

My posts about reporting elder abuse remain my most popular among readers and since it’s been a while since I’ve written on the topic, I thought it was time! I get regular calls from people about this question, often from adult children who are concerned about what is going on with a parent.  Plus, I listened to a webinar put on by the ABA last week about recognizing and preventing these scams.  Today I’m focusing on federal programs and resources.  Here’s a link to the US Department of Justice (DOJ) Elder Justice Initiative to get started.

Among the presenters at the webinar were a representative from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and a prosecutor from the US DOJ Civil Division’s Consumer Protection Branch.  I mention these two federal resources because most of us tend to focus only on local or state law enforcement when it comes to reporting suspected financial abuse or exploitation of an elders.  One other recent detail popped up on a listserve recently, reporting a scam concerning what was represented to be an “escrow company” to the victim and who told her they were assisting in the sale of her time share in Mexico.  Apparently tens of thousands of dollars were cumulatively wired to the scammers, for the purported purpose of covering taxes and transaction fees.  I searched online and found several posts about these types of scams that sound like perfectly legitimate businesses.  One of these scammers was using the name of a legitimate Colorado business.  Couple this with a scammer’s ability to “spoof” a phone number on the recipient’s caller ID, and it’s a pretty dangerously convincing mix!

The scammers are as familiar as the rest of us with the adage “if it’s too good to be true it probably is,” but some of these scams persist, coming in many new and different forms.  The more troubling scam scenario however is the much more legitimate sounding scam, which doesn’t purport to be a “sure thing,” but instead rely on a common human tendency toward “in for a penny, in for a pound” behavior, or what economists refer to as sunk cost fallacy and psychologists call commitment bias.

Many of these scenarios involve mail fraud and wire transfers.  Read a recent press release from the DOJ about actions concerning mail schemes targeting by foreign nationals.  Last March, the CFPB issued an advisory and a report with recommendations for best practices for banks and credit unions on “how to prevent, recognize, report, and respond to financial exploitation of older Americans. Financial exploitation, the illegal or improper use of a person’s funds, property or assets, is the most common form of elder abuse and costs seniors billions of dollars per year.”  The Advisory, which contains recommendations concerning the development of internal controls for the protection against and reporting of exploitation, training of staff to prevent , detect and respond to elder financial exploitation and using appropriate technology for the detection and reporting to local, state and federal authorities, is available here.  The executive summary of the CFPB’s report begins with an important message:

Elder financial exploitation has been called the crime of the 21st century and deploying effective interventions has never been more important. Older people are attractive targets because they often have assets and regular income. These consumers may be especially vulnerable due isolation, cognitive decline, physical disability, health problems, or bereavement. Elder financial exploitation robs victims of their resources, dignity and quality of life—and they may never recover from it.

You can read more of the report here.

There are many ways that scammers defraud elders and some of these include Medicare, Medicaid and health insurance fraud (which is akin to a form of identity theft), IRS and tax scams, mail fraud and internet scams involving “sweethearts” and online dating, sweepstakes and lottery “winnings” and tech support scam.  The Justice Department also has a helpful roadmap identifying what type of scam and which federal agency to which it can be reported.

One valuable thing for people to consider in reporting an incident of suspected elder financial abuse and exploitation is this: a single victim may not have suffered a devastatingly huge loss, relative to their life savings perhaps, and it may even have been a relatively small loss, but if it is multiplied among a range of victims nationwide, what the scammers take can amount to millions of dollars.  This is why reporting remains critically important.  We are charting new ground here as many facts and figures about the incidence and forms of elder financial abuse and exploitation remain unknown due to underreporting.

That’s all for now.

© Barbara E. Cashman 2017   www.DenverElderLaw.org

Let’s Raise Awareness About Elder Abuse!

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elder abuse awareness

Moonlight Near Westcliffe

For this last post of June, I wanted to circle back on the importance of raising awareness of elder abuse.  You can read the Presidential Proclamation on June 15, 2016, for World Elder Abuse Awareness Day right here and if you’re curious about the language of the Elder Justice Act, passed as part of the Affordable Care Act (as Title VI subtitle H, §§6701 et seq.), read this link.

In Colorado, as in nearly all other states, adult protection units are responsible for the reporting and investigation (along with law enforcement agencies) of elder abuse.  The Elder Justice Act is federal legislation which requires the U.S Department of Health and Human Services “to oversee the development and management of federal resources for protecting out seniors from elder abuse.”  Additionally, the U.S. Department of Justice is charged with taking action to prevent elder abuse.

The effective coordination of these county, state and federal efforts is of course a work in progress.  What we do know about raising awareness of elder abuse and exploitation is that it will lead to more reporting of such abuse.  Here is a link to a recent article in the Sacramento Bee which links the raised awareness of such abuse to a dramatic increase in reports to local law enforcement.   This is important to bear in mind as the baby boomers begin to become a greater proportion of the cohort affected by elder abuse and exploitation.  In my practice, I have unfortunately become familiar with national and international internet scams which relieve elders of their hard-earned retirement money.  This is a particular area in which the federal government might play a unique role as so much of our law of the internet is based in federal law.

Another tragic side effect of the victimization of elders, besides the shame, victimization and impoverishment which results from financial exploitation is that these elders, along with elder victims of all types of elder abuse – including physical and sexual abuse – are likely to die much sooner than their peers who were not victimized.  But many pieces of this puzzle remain unidentified due to the lack of long term studies which collect valuable statistics about elder abuse of various types! This is of course another aspect of the importance of raising awareness.  Because so much of elder abuse still remains unreported, this is a major quality of life challenge not just for elders and their loved ones and community, but also for those of us of “a certain age” who might be looking forward to a safe and meaningful elderhood.  How can we make things better for elders at risk now and in the future?

What is elder abuse and who are its primary victims of such elder abuse? By the numbers, they are largely women and the “old” of the elder population – meaning folks over 80.  Sadly, the vast majority of the abusers are family members of the elder or trusted friends or advisors.  Because most elders live in the community – not in institutions – this is a particular challenge for all of us who are community members to become familiar with the signs so that we can report concerns about safety, suspicious behaviors and the like to local law enforcement.

First – what are the kinds of elder abuse that we’re talking about? Here is a helpful listing from the U.S. government’s Administration on Aging website, which also has many helpful resources:

  • Physical Abuse—inflicting physical pain or injury on a senior, e.g. slapping, bruising, or restraining by physical or chemical means.
  • Sexual Abuse—non-consensual sexual contact of any kind.
  • Neglect—the failure by those responsible to provide food, shelter, health care, or protection for a vulnerable elder.
  • Exploitation—the illegal taking, misuse, or concealment of funds, property, or assets of a senior for someone else’s benefit.
  • Emotional Abuse—inflicting mental pain, anguish, or distress on an elder person through verbal or nonverbal acts, e.g. humiliating, intimidating, or threatening.
  • Abandonment—desertion of a vulnerable elder by anyone who has assumed the responsibility for care or custody of that person.
  • Self-neglect—characterized as the failure of a person to perform essential, self-care tasks and that such failure threatens his/her own health or safety.

 

And what about the warning signs of elder abuse which we can be more aware of?

  • Bruises, pressure marks, broken bones, abrasions, and burns may be an indication of physical abuse, neglect, or mistreatment.
  • Unexplained withdrawal from normal activities, a sudden change in alertness, and unusual depression may be indicators of emotional abuse.
  • Bruises around the breasts or genital area can occur from sexual abuse.
  • Sudden changes in financial situations may be the result of exploitation.
  • Bedsores, unattended medical needs, poor hygiene, and unusual weight loss are indicators of possible neglect.
  • Behavior such as belittling, threats, and other uses of power and control by spouses are indicators of verbal or emotional abuse.
  • Strained or tense relationships, frequent arguments between the caregiver and elderly person are also signs.
  • Changes in the elder’s personality or behavior, especially if the elder becomes withdrawn or despondent, questions to her or him can be very important in identifying a situation which may be the cause of the elder’s silent suffering.

Lastly, here is another helpful self-help resource specifically for Colorado residents – from Colorado Legal Services.  That’s all for now – but don’t forget . . . . Denver’s Senior law Day is coming up on Friday July 29, 2016 and will be held at the Denver Police Protective Association’s Event Center.  More details later.

© Barbara E. Cashman 2016   www.DenverElderLaw.org