FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
ABOUT FINANCIAL CASE MANAGEMENT
Do You Provide Direct Case Management To A Loved One, Or Just Help The Parent/Family Managing That Life?
It’s important to ensure that a client with compromised thinking can feel confident in understanding the roles and boundaries with professionals attempting to help them. As a result, we do not provide medical case management and financial oversight concurrently to a client. If a client or their agent asks us to perform both roles, we will assess those needs and hire the qualified medical or case management vendors to oversee the private medical care (if necessary) while we perform the financial case management. We see ourselves and act as fiduciaries in our day-to-day management of client bills, vendors, and cash flow, while projectively planning future costs to maintain their long term economic viability. In most cases, the family or a trust is our client and we are their qualified surrogates managing the life of a loved one or beneficiary. Our primary client outcomes are financial stabilization, quality of life, and long term fiscal health for the life we are managing. All families want autonomy and financial viability for a family member who is disabled or aging out; aging parents want to practice constructive separation from a disabled adult child to ready all parties (psychologically and otherwise) for a future when the parents are gone.
My Family Member Can’t Seem To Live On A Budget Or Manage Money. What Kind Of Change Can You Create That My Family Has Not Been Able To Do?
As both financial managers and medical disability experts, we know how to remain outside the emotional landscape that drives financial behavior and dysfunction within a family; we find that de-constructing well worn behavior/money dynamics can help establish new boundaries and structure. Tom’s 25+ years of experience as a trusted interventionist and counselor usually stimulates families to surrender power and decision-making to his team; then, he can reconstruct new rules and responsibilities regarding cash flow management and money/power dynamics. His approach to these broken systems creates change for families that are stuck, or worse.
What If The Adult Child With Disability Or Beneficiary Is Not Capable Or Competent To Choose To Work With You, But They Need Your Help?
We regularly work on behalf of persons who have guardians or conservators. In some cases, a guardian or conservator may be warranted, but legal action has not been formally taken. Here we advise families to follow a "least restrictive" path (i.e. seek direct informed consent or request permission that a power of attorney be named prior to a pending incapacity petition). This occurs in cases of periodic incapacity due to mental illness or addiction, usually as a result of financial losses due to personal behaviors or exploitation by third parties. We always provide in-house case reviews to choose the correct path to legally and ethically guide a person to have their affairs managed, and if necessary, pursuing a formal Court action. For the compromised (but competent) person who has psychiatric, neurological, or psychological challenges to working with us, we utilize psychiatric rehabilitation counseling to help that individual constructively participate or learn financial self-management skills.
Why Have Families Chosen Your Services For Financial Case Management Of A Loved One?
The realities of money and disability can be contaminants to a parent/child or other family/dependent relationship. In these instances, the adult child wants autonomy and the parent wants respite from being both parent and "banker". Also, families understand the necessary exercise of readying that compromised person for a future when the parent(s) are gone (or the money will soon be gone and public entitlements need to be secured). This process involves the compromised person or adult child learning to cooperate with third party professionals who will likely remain in their life to manage resources for them.
What Is Life Care Planning?
Parents and caregivers will always need competent counsel to answer the only question that matters-- “Who will ensure my loved one will be taken care of when I’m gone?” We help parents and families take a long view of housing, financial viability, insurance, and medical needs planning to provide piece of mind for a future when the next generation and community resources secure the quality of life of a loved one.
We are experts in understanding the arc of costing out housing, healthcare, and custodial care, as well as implementing public benefits and services. We have managed the lives of persons with unique financial needs associated with various forms of disability through the life cycle - young adults, persons in midlife, and seniors.
Where DO You provide this service?
We consider ourselves a boutique practice and are based in the DC metropolitan area, but serve families nationwide. Tom used to be known only in DC as a professional serving “public families with private problems”. Over time, he began consulting with families around the country who needed someone who could help them “whiteboard” healthcare and financial circumstances concurrently.
In 2021, we provided ongoing financial case management services in DC, MD, VA, but also performed interventional or financial consulting services for families and fiduciaries in CA, FL, NY, WA, MA and DE, as well as a few families living abroad whose dependent family members live in the US.
CONFIDENTIAL CONSULTATION
Contact Tom directly to explore how he may assist with your current or long term needs.