Invitation to a Very Special Veteran's Benefits Program

Veteran's Benefits Program

You are cordially invited

to a rare opportunity to an update on how we can assist our senior veterans and their surviving spouses with the honor and dignity they deserve.

Topics to be covered:

• Income and asset limits
• Status of the "Look Back" period
• Medical proof required
• Fully developed claim program (FDC)
• Who can aid a veteran? Who can charge a fee?
• VA backlogs, cures, strategies and risks
• Where to find the law and updates

Long time Veterans attorney and nationally known expert and author on Veteran's benefits, Ronald Abrams, Esq.

has accepted our invitation to come from Washington to speak to our community about Veteran's Pension Benefits including current Aid and Attendance issues.

Date:       Thursday, March 21st
Where:   South County Civic Center, Delray Beach
16700 Jog Road, Delray Beach, FL 33446

:) Conveniently located to Broward County and South Palm Beach

When:    10:15am - 1pm (Breakfast and networking from 9:30 to 10:15)

This event is FREE

All contributions are welcome.

All proceeds will go to the NVLSP to help our veterans across the nation.

CEUs & CLEs Provided.

Interested in introducing your company? Become an Underwriter, which includes distributing literature. Contact Alice Reiter Feld at: reiterfeld@aol.com

Seating is VERY limited

More information to follow.

To reserve your place please call Tracy at [954]-861-2681

Much thanks to Shalloway and Shalloway for their generous contribution to NVLSP

For information about Ron Abrams and NVLSP Visit www.nvlsp.org

For more information on the "bible" for Veteran's advocate

Veteran's Benefits Manual visit www.lexisnexis.com and visit the "Store".

End-Of-Life Issues

Back in 2000, the Alzheimer's Association Ethics Advisory Panel concluded that advanced-stage Alzheimer's should be considered a terminal disease.

This conclusion led to the realization, by many families, that they should be more concerned with pain-care than cure.

I believe in that same approach to terminal illness - letting the patient die with dignity, and with a focus on pain-alleviation, rather than keeping her alive through feeding tubes.

A study several years ago concluded that Alzheimer's patients with pneumonia or hip fractures die much sooner than patients with those injuries who aren't cognitively-impaired. Several studies have found that palliative care, rather than life-extension, is called for in those cases. And palliative care is much more effectively-given at home or on hospice than in a hospital setting.

Experts have noted that life-extension efforts in end-stage Alzheimer's create extra suffering for patients, and extra burdens for families. That invasive testing should be avoided. And that antibiotics are not called for, as they don't prolong life, and don't contribute to patient comfort.

I agree - emphatically! I believe discussions about end-of-life care should begin shortly after someone is diagnosed with Alzheimer's. I believe the patient should create advance directives stating her wishes about her medical treatment. I believe the patient should create a Durable Power of Attorney, designating a surrogate to make decisions about her care when she no longer can. And I believe the patient should create a Living Will, so her desires for end-of-life treatment are on a legal document, and not subject to interpretation.

If you've got a loved one with Alzheimer's, you're probably overwhelmed with questions...more and more as the disease progresses. And, for every one answer you get, you'll come up with two new questions. But we can help.

At The Law Offices of Alice Reiter Feld, we've been answering questions about Alzheimer's - and a hundred other Elder Law issues - for the past 34 years. During that time, we've answered these questions for thousands of South Florida families. And we've answered their questions, too, about comprehensive estate planning, wills, trusts, powers of attorney, long-term care planning, asset-protection plans, and assistance with Medicaid or the VA.

If you have questions, we have answers. And we're just a phone call away.

Hospice Cares For The Person - Not Just The Patient

Whenever a client tells me that hospice is a place “where you go to die,” I respond like this: “Actually, it’s a place you go to live! To live out your end-days in comfort, in a warm, compassionate, atmosphere, without tubes sticking out of you. It’s a place where you go to live out the last days of your life with dignity.”

Yes, hospice focuses on palliative care – the relief of pain. But it also focuses on the whole person, and the whole family, to address spiritual, psychological, or financial pain.

We’re a complex species. And our pain, of course, can be emotional as well as physical. But hospice addresses both. Because it’s focused on treating pain, and not on keeping you “alive” as long as possible, hospice cares as much for the psyche as it does the physical.

I’ve mentioned this before in my writings…but it bears mentioning again. Numerous studies have shown that terminal patients in hospice live longer than those in hospitals – and that the quality of their remaining time is better.

Hospice is so concerned about servicing the whole person, in fact, that they’ll even do it in the patient’s home. And after the patient passes, hospice is there for the family, with a soft shoulder, spiritual guidance, counseling, bereavement groups, etc.

Now, I ask you – Does this sound like “a place you go to die?” Or a place you go to actually live the last days or weeks or months of your life – spiritually and emotionally as well as physically?

Many new clients come to me with misperceptions about hospice. And you may have some, too. No doubt you have questions. But we can help – because we have answers.

At The Law Offices of Alice Reiter Feld & Associates, we practice Elder Law – and only Elder Law. Over the past 34 years, we’ve answered questions for thousands of South Florida families. And we’ve helped them plan for the future, with comprehensive estate plans, wills, trusts, powers of attorney, long-term care plans, asset-protection plans, and assistance with Medicaid or the VA.

We can answer your questions. And we’re just a phone call away.

You Can't Cure Terminal Illness!

As an experienced Elder Law attorney, it still breaks my heart each time a client believes that chemotherapy can actually cure his/her terminal cancer. And, sadly, it’s not uncommon; many patients with Stage 4 cancer undergo chemotherapy because they believe it might cure them.

That, to me, is an incredible indictment of our medical system, in which too few doctors ever have end-of-life discussions with terminal patients. And in which too few terminal patients ever realize they have choices.

In a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, about 75% of patients with terminal cancer actually believed that chemotherapy could cure them, rather than simply keep them alive a little longer. The study concluded that most terminal patients don’t understand that chemotherapy doesn’t buy a cure…it only buys a little more time.

When it can truly relive pain, chemotherapy is warranted. But if it’s merely to extend life, patients – and families - may be operating under an extreme misperception.

Aggressive chemotherapy merely to extend life can actually compromise the quality of remaining life. It may result in putting off discussions that should take place NOW. And it delays entrance to hospice, which offers patients the chance to die with dignity, without being hooked up to machines and without being in pain. (Several studies have shown that terminal patients actually live longer on hospice than in hospitals.)

Doctors should be asking patients how much they actually know about their cancer. How much they want to know. Who else they’d like included in the discussion. And what issues are really important to them.

In our society, doctors are trained to cure, not to question. But patients have a right to know. And to decide for themselves.

These are the hardest questions families will ever face. But we can help.

At The Law Offices of Alice Reiter Feld & Associates, we’ve been answering these questions for 34 years - and we’ve helped thousands of South Florida families. We’ve helped them prepare in advance, as well, with comprehensive estate planning, wills, trusts, powers of attorney, long-term care planning, asset-protection plans, and assistance with Medicaid and the VA.

We can help. And we’re just a phone call away.