| Law Office of Attorney Russell P. Canevazzi 58 Sandwich Street Plymouth, Massachusetts 02360 (508) 746-3161 |
| NEWS |
********Common Ways to Prevent ID Theft********
Skilled identity thieves use a variety of methods to steal your
personal information including:
1. Dumpster Diving: They rummage through trash looking for
bills or other paper with your personal information on it.
2. Skimming: They steal credit/debit card numbers by using a
special storage device when processing your card.
3. Phishing: They pretend to be financial institutions or
companies and send spam or pop-up messages to get you to
reveal your personal information.
4. Changing Your Address: They divert your billing
statements to another location by completing a "change of
address" form.
5. "Old-Fashioned" Stealing: They steal wallets and purses;
mail, including bank and credit card statements; pre-approved
credit offers; and new checks or tax information. They steal
personnel records from their employers, or bribe employees
who have access.
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IMPORTANT NOTICE
As you may know, the federal privacy bill, The Health
Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) takes
effect on April 14, 2003. This new federal law will have a
significant impact on the process for requesting copies of
patient medical records.
The HIPAA rule (Section 164.508) pertaining to the release
of protected health information states that an authorization
for the release of medical records must be in plain language
and contain the following elements in order to be valid:
· Identification of the persons or class of persons (i.e.,
physician practice; hospital) authorized to make the
disclosure
· Identification of the persons or class of persons
(recipients; i.e., attorneys; insurance companies) to whom
the physician practice or hospital is authorized to make the
disclosure
· A description of the protected health information to be
disclosed including dates of treatment
· A description of each purpose for the use or disclosure
of the protected health information
· A statement that protected health information used or
disclosed pursuant to the authorization may or may not be
subject to redisclosure by the recipient
· A statement that the patient may revoke the
authorization in writing, with instructions for revoking the
authorization
· The individual’s (patient) signature and date
· The expiration date or event causing the authorization
to become invalid
· If signed by a patient’s personal representative (i.e.
legal guardian), a statement of the representative’s
authority to act on behalf of the patient
The authorization for release of information is not valid,
according to the HIPAA statute, if the authorization has any
of the following defects:
· The expiration date or event has passed
· The authorization has not been filled out completely
with respect to the required content listed above
· The authorization is known by the physician practice or
hospital to have been revoked
· Any material information in the authorization is known
by the physician practice or hospital to be false
PLEASE NOTE: Beginning on April 14, 2003, if the patient’
s authorization to disclose protected health information does
not comply with the HIPAA requirements, this
hospital/physician practice will be unable to honor your
request for medical records
Please feel free to contact www.hhs.gov or the
hospital/physician practice’s health information management
department with any questions about these new
requirements.
N.B. An additional authorization to release sensitive, legally
protected information may be required.
___________________________________________________
10 Facts Funeral Directors Don’t Want you to Know
By Ellen Goodstein—Bankrate.com
Most Americans leave the funeral decisions for their loved ones to make at the time
of their deaths. But making these arrangements at such an emotional time can be
unnecessarily expensive.
“The unsuspecting consumer is setting himself up to be vulnerable to excessive
spending on items and services that he doesn’t need or want,” declares Joshua
Slocum, executive director of the Vermont-based Funeral Consumers Alliance, a
not-for-profit consumer information and advocacy group.
FCA fields calls from angry and confused consumers everyday.
“I just spoke with a woman who had asked for a very modest service for a loved
one, “ says Slocum. “She paid $7,000 for funeral services when what she really
wanted should have cost her around $1,500. She was sold embalming, which she
didn’t need, and the markup on the casket was excessive.
“She said to me, ‘We did everything we could to cut costs, and this is the best we
could do.’
“It’s a crying shame,” says Slocum.
COSTS ADD UP QUICKLY
According to AARP, funeral and burial costs can easily reach as much as $10,000.
The average cost of a traditional adult funeral in 1999 was $5,020 without any
extras. Burial costs can add an extra $2,000 or more. Flowers, obituary notices,
burial liners or vaults, limousines, acknowledgement cards — they all add up to a
major expenditure.
“Funeral services are one of the largest purchases consumers will make, right up
there with a car and a house,” explains Brenda Mack, a public affairs specialist with
the Federal Trade Commission.
It’s important to take your time when deciding on the funeral service. Don’t let
yourself be pressured into buying goods or services you don’t want, and then end up
having to spend years paying off the funeral, says Mack.
Check out the funeral home before you arrange services through them, advises Diana
Evans, bureau chief of funeral and cemetery services for the Florida Department of
Financial Services.
“You want to be sure you go to somebody who is licensed and has a good
reputation in the community. Ask for recommendations from your friends or your
rabbi or priest. Even go to a funeral and see how professionally they conduct their
business,” she says.
Call and speak with a funeral director before visiting, suggests David Walkinshaw, a
spokesman for the National Funeral Director’s Association and operator of Saville
and Gannon Funeral Home in Arlington, Mass.
Become an informed consumer.
Here are a few examples of what some funeral directors would rather you not know.
1. Shopping around for funeral services can save you thousands of
dollars.
“Consumers need to apply the same level of savvy to funeral purchases as they
would to anything else,” advises Slocum.
Don’t assume a funeral will cost the same just about anywhere. It’s not so.
“By federal law, funeral providers have to give consumers a general price list of all
goods and services without the consumer having to ask for it,” notes Mack.
“As soon as a person tells a funeral director, ‘I want to talk about your services,’ the
consumer must be handed a written list of all goods and services offered by the
funeral home and what they cost.”
Typically included would be costs for the initial conference, consultations,
paperwork and overhead. This fee, called a “nondeclinable fee,” is added to the
total cost of the funeral. There is wide variation in pricing of the nondeclinable fee,
cautions FCA’s Slocum.
The general price list should also include cost of transportation of the body, care of
the body (including embalming), and use of the funeral home for viewing, wake,
visitation, and funeral or memorial ceremony. Alternative arrangements such as
cremation and optional services such as flowers, placing an obituary and obtaining a
death certificate should also be listed on the general price list.
Use the price list and shop among funeral providers to find the most reasonably
priced service, advises Mack.
The AARP recommends obtaining price lists by phone or in person from at least
three funeral homes before making a selection.
2. Funeral directors are not clergy.
Funeral directors are business people. They are not ministers, but people often treat
them as quasi-clergy, notes Slocum. “This is a mistake. Consumers tend to trust
them implicitly and believe everything they say. Remember, funeral homes are in the
business to make mone
“Usually within a few minutes of talking to a funeral director, you can get a feel for
who they are. You can hear professionalism. Make sure you’re comfortable and, if
not, call somebody else.”
3. Embalming is rarely required when the person will be buried within 24
to 48 hours.
The United States and Canada are the only countries in the world that routinely
embalm their dead. Embalming is not a matter of protecting the public health, as
some unscrupulous morticians would have you believe, says Slocum. The Centers
for Disease Control has consistently shown that embalming does not serve any public
health purpose.
“Refrigeration is almost always a legal alternative,” urges Slocum, who says it's just
as good if not better than embalming.
Funeral directors routinely refuse to have a public viewing without embalming, but it
is not a legal requirement except in Minnesota.
Know your rights, advises Slocum. If the funeral home insists, ask for a private
viewing without embalming.
4. Seeing your loved one prior to burial without the benefit of embalming
will not leave you with unresolved grief issues.
“This is a myth,” notes Slocum. “There are no objective studies that bear this out.
Embalming is an incredibly invasive process — there’s nothing gentle about it. It’s
strictly a temporary cosmetic and preservative process.”
“If more people knew what embalming entailed, they would not choose to do it,”
says Slocum.
5. Sealed caskets cannot preserve a body.
Sealed caskets cost hundreds of dollars more than unsealed caskets, reports FCA’s
Slocum. “It actually costs the casket manufacturers only about $12.00.”
But the idea that a casket can protect or preserve the body is “absolute rubbish.”
Sealer vaults likewise offer no advantage except to the income of the funeral
director, he says.
6. A funeral provider may not refuse or charge a fee to handle a casket
you bought elsewhere.
The casket is the single most expensive item in a traditional funeral. In a 1996
survey, the AARP found the average price of a casket to be $1,658.
Traditionally, caskets were sold only by funeral homes, but today cemeteries and
retailers sell caskets. You can even purchase one on the internet. You can also use
a family built one if you choose. Caskets are available in many styles and prices and
can be made from metal, wood, fiberglass or plastic.
According to the federal “Funeral Rule,” it is illegal for a funeral home to charge a
“handling fee” if you wish to bring in your own casket from an outside source.
7. You don’t need to spend more than $400 to $600 for a modest casket.
Since a casket is one of the largest expenses of a funeral, reduce your expenses by
shopping around.
If a funeral home is charging more than $400 to $600, you can bet there’s a 300 to
500 percent markup, says Slocum. A casket that is listed at $1,295 at the funeral
home might wholesale for $325. That same casket is probably available from a
casket retailer for $650.
To discourage customers from choosing less expensive caskets, low-end
merchandise is often ordered in ugly colors by funeral homes or is stored in an out of
the way place, he says. If the price and basic design of a modest casket appeal to
you, ask what other colors can be ordered. Usually a funeral home can get a more
attractive replacement within hours.
8. You do not have to buy the whole bundle of services.
Many funeral providers offer various “packages” of commonly selected goods and
services that make up a funeral.
“Consumers have the right to pick and choose which services they want without
buying a whole package,” stresses Mack.
“You can tell the funeral director, ‘I want the first three but not the last two.’ In the
past there was no way to unbundle the services, and consumers got soaked because
they didn’t know any better,” she says.
9. You can plan and carry out many things on your own to honor your
loved one without paying for services from a funeral home.
Having a memorial service at home, your church, a park or the community center is
one way to save money, suggests Diana Evans. You could print memorial cards on
your home computer, decorate the room with pictures or items suggestive of your
loved one, like fishing poles or needlepoint, and have friends and family tell stories
about your loved one.
“It not only saves you money, it’s more personal,” she says.
10. Local funeral and memorial societies can help consumers find ethical
establishments and often negotiate discounts for their members.
The Funeral Consumers Alliance has 115 chapters in 46 states around the country.
They used to be called funeral and memorial societies. These groups are run by
volunteers and will have information on local funeral homes as well as price surveys
that can assist the consumer in comparison-shopping for services.
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| Please direct questions or comments to the email provided below. rcanevazzi@yahoo.com |
The blended family — where the husband and wife bring together children from previous marriages — has
become as American as apple pie and baseball, and statistically, is more common than the traditional first-
marriage family, according to experts.
"It's in every demographic, in every town, on every street," said Judith Caron, LMHC, a Plymouth-based
mental health clinician. She is also a licensed marriage and family therapist.
Caron said issues that spring from a blended family are becoming more common factors in marriages of
couples over 50 years old.
"Generally, anyone entering into a second or third marriage has baggage of some kind. But the good thing
about these families is they start with love between two people who have decided they can make a go of it," she
said.
The bringing together of two adults, children who are teenagers or even older and the history of two broken
families is not going to always be a smooth transition, Caron said.
"People think there shouldn't be problems, but there will always be problems," she said. "The trick is to deal
with them as soon as they come up."
Caron said friction between the new spouse and teen children is a common problem.
"Teenagers generally want less involvement in their parents' life, but they also want some control over what
is happening," she said. It is common for the new spouse to get the cold shoulder from their new wife or
husband's teen.
"Everyone needs to sit down and decide what role each will play in each other's lives," she said. The new
couple needs to realize that children, despite their age, will be grieving for their former family, and the couple
needs to show respect for the former family and spouses.
"But most of all, there needs to be solidarity within the couple. They need to be co-captains of the ship and
always present a united front," she said.
Caron said every child needs to be treated fairly.
"If Jane has horseback riding lessons on Monday and her stepbrother John has football on Monday, there
has to be a way to work it out fairly for both of them," she said.
Caron said that what she calls "The Big C's" — communication and compromise — are essential.
"Older teens will certainly show some defiance, but when they see how the couple is in it for the long haul
and try to work things out fairly, they will come around," Caron said.
Russell Canevazzi, a Plymouth-based lawyer who works as a mediator in family issues, said one of the
biggest points of contention when people re-many and blend families are finances.
"When you have two people in the 50-plus age group, they have often acquired a certain amount of both
wealth and financial obligations," he said.
Canevazzi said it is essential for both spouses to agree on financial responsibilities before the marriage.
"Who is paying for whose college education, and how much? How are the household finances going to be paid
for? How are the wills drawn up? All these questions should be answered and agreed upon," he said. Canevazzi
said he is seeing more older couples draw up prenuptial agreements for second or third marriages.
"It's getting very common now, and is a good way of deciding before the marriage who gets what, and who
is responsible for what," he said.
Canevazzi said mediation is often a good option when there are conflicts.
"It isn't marriage counseling, but when there are disputes, it's a good way of getting the issues out in the open
in front of an unbiased third party," he said.
"Conflicts are going to occur. That's life. The key to success with this kind of arrangement is to deal with the
problems so everyone feels like a respected member of the family," he said.
Bill and Susan of Peabody, who have asked that their last name not be published, said their "hers, mine and
ours" family took a little getting used to at first. Each spouse brought at lest two children to their own personal
melting pot, which now consists of five children ranging in age from 14 to 20.
"It was both a wonderful time, because we met, fell in love and decided to get married, and also a very
difficult time because we had all these personalities under one roof all of a sudden," said Bill, 53, who has been
married to Susan, 48, for four years.
Susan said that if she could change one thing about bringing together their blended family, it would have
been requiring all family members to attend some counseling sessions early in the marriage.
"Resentment built up in the beginning over sometimes the smallest things, like sharing a bedroom for
weekends or sharing time with the computer or phone. It would have made things easier if we had known how
to spot trouble and deal with it early," she said.
The most difficult challenge for the couple was establishing the authority of the new spouse.
"Bill and I, at first, were walking on eggshells with each other's kids, but after a while, we found that we
were losing some ground with discipline issues. At that point, we really banded together and backed each other
up on decisions," she said.
Bill said fairness and consistency have been key for them.
"It was tough in the beginning, but it has worked out great and all the kids are good friends with each other
and both of us," he said.
50+ Helpful Hints
· Respect every family member’s concerns and issues.
· Talk things out. Don’t let problems fester. Make room for discussion.
· Set some ground rules, especially if couples are over 50 and children are teens or college age.
· Set realistic expectations about how everyone will co-exist.
· Make sure there is group time, as well as time for individuals.
· Organize fun activities where everyone can participate.
· Provide “hang out” time where teens can just be.
· The step-parent needs to be a friend and not try to immediately be the parent. Build trust.
PLANNING FOR THE HOLIDAYS
The holidays are typically a stressful time for even the most organized and easy-going families. Here are
some helpful holiday tips for blended families.
· Plan well in advance of the holiday so there are no last minute surprises to disappoint, heighten anger, or
add stress.
· Respect the other home. Be as polite - and as flexible - as possible. Don't over personalize the
arrangements being made. The goal is to coordinate calendars between homes to create a positive holiday
experience for the children. This can be done via telephone, email, or in person. Do your very best to be on time.
· Inform your children of the holiday schedule by posting a calendar or chart in his or her room so the plans
are clearly understood and easily remembered.
· Discuss, between homes, the “bigger” gift items that will be bought for your children so they are not
duplicated. Perhaps you could both contribute money to one item. This models teamwork, healthy co-
parenting, and less burden on the budget.
· Gifts given per child can be limited. Blended children have multiple sets of parents, grandparents and aunts
and uncles. If possible, ask these individuals to give the gift of "lessons," or an age appropriate magazine
subscriptions that will have an ongoing fun and educational impact rather than receive one more toy in an already
full toy box.
· Honor the other parent by helping the child select a gift for that person.
· Traditions, old and new, are important enough to keep. They are the memory makers that bond us to one
another generation after generation. Include those traditions the child has become accustomed to being a part of.
Then make it a goal to create new traditions for the newly formed familv. Add a new tradition each year. Get
input from all family members. (i.e. attend midnight mass, a live nativity, a singing Christmas tree, place a potato
in a stocking as an Irish blessing of good fortune)
· Remember the boys and girls who do not go to another home. They might be sad when their brother or
sister isn't there on Christmas day. Take this opportunity to pray for happy holidays for those at home and those
who are away.
· Relate to one another with fun activities. Bake cookies together. Decorate the tree when the whole family
is together. Go caroling together. Bundle up and head for the snow with sleds. Don't forget to make a big
snowman!
· Prioritize time so you are available to enjoy the holiday season with your family. They are your most
important responsibility. Make this your Merriest Christmas ever.
| South Zone * Living 50+ * Community Newspapers * October 2006 COMMON GROUND Communication, setting rules key for blended families By KATHLEEN ZIGMONT CORRESPONDENT |