Are caregivers covered by HIPPA or other privacy laws?
For caregivers, are their activities for my mom protected by HIPPA or other privacy laws? my mother (passed away in June) had 2 occasional caregivers, independent contractors, and they did awesome work for my mom. Now, when going over last year or so of mom's transactions, in order to prepare an accounting for my 4 siblings, how much detail do I include about these caregivers? Isn't it an invasion of privacy for me to share information about the caregivers, how much they were paid per hour.....would it be sufficient for me to just give a total amount per month? And skip the details. Just have a "caregiving" category and not put down every day of the week they were there or what they did. It would take me forever to go over their time sheets for that much detail!
45 Answers
Popular Questions
Related Questions
- Mom wants to leave hospital to attend my eldest brother's funeral. Hospital says if she leaves, she won't be able to come back. Any advice?
- Why don't doctors realize how difficult it is to get a dementia patient (93) into the office?
- Mom has dementia, and will not go to be tested for treatment. What to do?
- Where to begin when moving into Florida's adult/aging services?
Patients are covered by HIPPA laws. Still, I would only report per month. The other idea sounds too work intensive and too much detail. Why on earth do they want so much detail? Are they greedy siblings that don't trust the money was spent and spent properly on your mom's care? If they were so concerned, where have they been this whole time?
Whose the executor of the estate, you?
I wouldn't think you need to detail names, visits, hours, hourly rates, etc.
First, though I would check with the probate court and ask for a sample accounting. If they don't have one, ask about the level of detail needed to be provided. It wouldn't hurt to do some online research and find some law firms that address this. Look for ones in your county that would be familiar with the probate court there.
Accountings can be laborious; I would start with the broader classifications and only provide detail if asked.
I might write something like:
Happy Hours Caregiving Agency, Week of May (insert date), 2015: $_____
Jane Doe, independent caregiver, ____ hours, week of April, 2015: $_____
Or if they did bill by the month, eliminate the "week of" and just include the month and the total billed.
If siblings do want more detail, I assume you have the bills: sometimes just using the old legal trick of too much information will stop them - send copies of the bills and let sibs spend their own time going through the bills.
The siblings are questioning why they only got X amount of money (from her bank accounts) instead of Z amount of money. In their silly little brains, from far out of state, they were expecting "more" than they got. That is what this is all about. So now, as Executor, I have to "prove" to them that X amount is in fact correct, and there was no excessive expenses. Really quite STUPID of them to be even asking this question!
I am sure they will feel very embarrassed once they see, there was nothing unusual going on, whatsoever. But, they sure are paying a lot for me to get this paperwork together.....
A....Give them the most basic accounting.
B......Tell them all to stuff it
But first, as to printing everything out - save yourself time and money. I sent trust accountings by e-mail. I kept a log of activities in WordPerfect and used Excel for the accountings It's sooooo much easier to just click a few icons and let Excel complete all the totals. Or copy your accountings to disk and send the siblings each a disk.
I an almost guarantee you that if you send them a spreadsheet by disk, they won't spend as much time going over it as they would with a paper copy.
You also don't have to enlarge the print size; do it in what's easy for you; siblings can enlarge it when you send them the Excel spreadsheet (but lock it first so no changes can be made - that's important).
There's another method you can use, which actually makes it easier for you. I used this when I did Mom and Dad's taxes, and kept an up to date accounting of where they were tax-wise so I could anticipate whether or not end of the year payments would be necessary.
I had an older version of Excel; Excel 2013 is a major step backward in ease of use and is totally not user friendly. If you have an older version, use it.
You probably have a variety of expenses, including the caregiving, bills you paid, transportation, medicines, etc. There are 2 ways this can be done:
You can create a separate spreadsheet for each category (all within the same workbook), i.e., one spreadsheet for all the household bills, another for food, another for caregiving, etc. In Excel, the total of each column in a spreadsheet can be linked to a summary sheet.
Example: in your caregiving sheet, you might enter bills for each specific week or month, then create a total for all of the caregiving costs. That total would be linked to a summary spreadsheet of all types of costs. The difference is that this latter sheet doesn't provide breakdowns.
If this doesn't make sense, post back and I'll provide more detail. It's clear in my mind, but I don't know how anyone else might see it.
Moving forward, e-mail the spreadsheet total, with or without the linked line item breakdowns. Depending on the number of categories, this could easily include up to a dozen or so different spreadsheets. If the siblings want the breakdowns, send them the backup data to review, again, not in print but electronically. Then let the siblings wade through all the data.
The point is that you have to create something for yourself to arrive at the summaries; keep that as your reference but if the sibs protest, send all the backup data and let them try to figure it out.
And yes, definitely add your time for preparing this. Once they realize you're not doing this for free, they might begin to realize that every request diminishes what's available for them. And don't forget to include your time for dealing with the house cleanout, disposal of goods, calls to auctioneers, etc.
What I found after doing this was that my sibling didn't even bother to read it but instead would ask questions. I said "it's all in the accounting."
I just thought of a completely different way to approach this. If you have copies of her past taxes which would show her income and how much of a medical deduction she got each year, that maybe it would suffice.
Their expecting Z amount instead of X amount is unrealistic and reflects on their lack of awareness and involvement.
That's just a random idea that came to mind. It would probably only be doable if a CPA has done her taxes all along for they would likely have past copies on file.
I'm just going to add up the basic info, and tell them, I do have all the individual time sheets, doctor appointment times/who took mom, etc. And the caregivers themselves did fill out time sheets, but after mom died, I'm afraid they may have tossed them.
I am most definitely keeping track of my time to provide all this silly documentation to them.
To those who don't know, I was the main caregiver for mom, and the 4 sibs were completely un-involved. She died very suddenly after a minor knee procedure. They did not help me one little iota with anything---not even the funeral planning, and I did ask them to help. I have heard more from them since mom died, than I ever did before. They are just greedy, wanting their money, and they are surprised that there is not more.
My time now should be spent on getting her house all ready to sell---this silly request for "where did the money go" is just delaying that sale, and the house is the biggest asset, so, why would they want me to spend time doing other stuff? They are just not thinking this through very carefully. As I said, they are SILLY.
So their request would be premature. You could tell them so and state that you'll advise them when the house has been closed, and in the meantime, inquiries such as how much they're going to get and/or what the expenses were are premature.
So the sibs really aren't going to know for sure what, if anything, they'll receive until the house is sold.
You SHOULD NOT be paying her expenses out of your own funds, unless there are no liquid assets right now, but you need to keep very good records on these expenses and reimburse yourself before distributing proceeds to the sibs. I speak from experience.
Send them each an email telling them you are your Mom's executor of her estate and when it is settled, you will contact them with their "share" of what it left after appropriate deductions are taken after final expenses. Tell them it will take several months and up to a year before you "settle" everything. Remember, when you are preparing your Mom's house for sale, you will be paying for cleaning it, disposing of property, perhaps repainting the interior, getting a realtor, paying to list/sell the house. This can be a VERY lengthy process and your siblings need to be aware that "their share" will not be coming anytime in the near future. You have NO help from them and, frankly, will probably not get ANY help from them. Take your sweet time and don't rush it because of greedy sibs wanting their money. You should in no way be paying for your Mom's funeral out of your own personal funds. If you have done so, make sure you reimburse yourself.
You are a meticulous recordkeeper and I know you can handle this. If they balk, invite them to "fly in" from out of state to peruse your 16 binders worth of information. If they want copies of everything, make sure you remind them that THAT expense (of copying records) will be taken out of "their" shares. Ask them when they are planning to come out to help you for several weeks to "go through" the house and help you prepare it for sale? Tell them, "I need help scrubbing the floors and cleaning out the cupboards", etc. etc. I bet you will not hear one word from them about rushing to help you do this!
Sorry to sound cold, but again, they did not care to help you when Mom was alive, so do not feel one iota of guilt for not bending over backwards to cater to THEIR needs/inquiries.
They are far out of state. What are the odds that they will all come to town to hassle you about this? We read about greedy siblings time and time again on this forum. It's sad and pathetic. Again, YOU are in the driver's seat as Executor. Keep your records of all final expenses. If you need assistance, by all means hire the same attorney who prepared your Mom's will. Good luck and let us know how you fare.
.Does your attorney - which I'm assuming is an estate & probate limited practice guy (so he's a specialist) - do litigation? I'd ask him ASAP if he does. If not, ask him who he turns over clients to if there is litigation. Most probate guys seem to me to be very formula oriented & dealing with claims and negotiating competing claims to settle an estate is within the purview of what they routinely do. But if other heirs are planning on challenging either validity of will or suitability of executor or decisions made by executor, well, that could mean litigation - which is going to be very time consuming & costly all around. Not all probate guys do litigation.
If there is anything in your background (& hubs or kids under your roof or dependency for that matter) that could be an issue for suitability, you could find yourself challenged as executor. I'd suggest you pull your & hubs current credit report from the big 3 to see if any recent requests of the report and by whom. If a law firm or PI firm show a pull, then your sibs legal is gathering info on your suitability.
What point are you in probate? Have you been appointed, will ruled valid & letters testamentary issued?
Have the data requests been from the sibs, or from their attorney? This could make a big difference in predicting what actions they might take.
Igloo makes good points about getting credit reports to ensure there are no red flags (not intending to insult you, but there are mistakes on credit reports. I find some every time I get mine). You might also consider putting a 90 day fraud alert on; it stops all but legitimate creditors from getting a report. Since sibling's attorneys aren't legitimate creditors, I don't think sibs or their attorney would have a legitimate right to your credit reports.
And just an FYI - when a potential litigation might be on the horizon, don't speak with the sibs via phone calls; do it via e-mail or snail mail so it can be documented, and do document all contact with them. I have a suspicion that's what they're doing.
And don't for a moment think that kind of manipulation is beyond an attorney, especially one in solo practice or in a small law firm.
I don't think I mentioned this earlier, but your time and costs to produce the documents they want are legitimate estate charges.
As I recall, you've already copied what you're going to send them. In the future, if you can scan the data in, then send it by e-mail (read receipt requested) to keep down the transit costs, you can also tell them that every one of their requests is going to reduce the net amount available in the estate.
Igloo's insights are always good. From your posts, you seem to be meticulous in detailing everything, so that's an excellent foundation if you need to defend your actions.
And even though it can be costly, I think you'd be wise to continue to get your attorney's opinion at different stages of your estate administration. On the other hand, it doesn't hurt to be prepared, as you have been.
Do you know the name of the sibs' attorney? It's easy to check him or her out and determine what the practice area is. If you don't want to share it publicly, PM me and I'll see what I can find out for you. I've found that solo attorneys can sometimes have a "little dog syndrome" - they don't have as many clients, and sometimes need to puff about a bit and do extra work to compensate for that fact. Attorneys in larger firms are billiably driven but usually are overloaded with cases, so they don't become involved in unnecessary or frivolous litigation. It will help to know what their attorney's background is.
This is a good reason for an in terrorem clause.
That raises another issue - the sibs may not have grounds to challenge your mother's will, so they may try to challenge your administration of her estate, trying to make an issue out of your handling of it rather than your mother's disposition intents.
There's usually a clause in the Will addressing culpability of the PR and providing some protection. Wouldn't hurt to read it and run it by your attorney.
If it were me, and I was as burnt out after all of this as you might be, I would:
Give them the name of an attorney to contact for the information they are seeking, be sure they know any contact will be at their own expense. Provide the info to only the attorney, and only what the attorney asks for.
When you said are caregivers 'covered' by hippa laws, did you maybe mean, are caregivers 'bound' by hippa laws?